Frank Lampard
Frank Lampard was furious at seeing Chelsea denied a penalty during their goalless draw with Manchester United, having warned his players about the Reds’ penalty record at Old Trafford before kick-off.
Frank Lampard said “Without a doubt, I’m interested to see what everyone else says. I spoke to the lads about how many penalties they get here, over the last two seasons they’re miles ahead in Europe. It’s a really clear penalty, VAR is here for those decisions, they’re not always easy for the referee on the pitch, I get that, but I don’t understand why it didn’t get given. They’ve done that at the start. He gives it if he looks at the monitor because I don’t think you can explain not giving it when you see the image and the headlock that he’s in. It’s surprising, they have time to look at it, sometimes they take up to three minutes but this time they just moved on.”
Harry Maguire escaped punishment for hauling down Cesar Azpiliceuta, with both arms around his throat, in the first half and VAR appeared to not even check the incident. That left Lampard seething and he revealed he’d warned his players about United’s penalty record at Old Trafford before the game. This time it was a decision in the other penalty area that went against Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side and Lampard could not understand how the decision hadn’t gone Chelsea’s way. There was no sign that the VAR did check the penalty incident and Lampard felt it would have been given had Martin Atkinson gone to look at the pitchside monitor.
