Former referee explains Tottenham's Guglielmo Vicario incident against Brentford

During the second half of the win over Brentford on Saturday, Spurs goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario appeared to touch the ball with his hand outside his penalty area, causing great anger among Brentford fans in the away section and on social media, who were angry that Spurs' number one was not penalised and questioned why the video assistant referee did not intervene after the referee failed to notice it in real time.

Former Premier League referee with 14 years' experience Mark Halsey explained that the VAR could only have intervened if the incident had been considered a clear and obvious error that would have resulted in a red card, which was not the case in this particular case.

However, the former referee said it was a “gap that needed to be filled” and called on current referees to use their own discretion to decide whether incidents like this constituted a denial of a goal-scoring opportunity.

Halsey said: “The incident in which goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario handled the ball outside his penalty area was wrongly penalised by the referees. But I don't think the Tottenham player who was not penalised should have been sent off. In a situation like this you have to weigh up whether it meets the criteria of preventing a goal or having an obvious goal-scoring opportunity.

Referees must take into account the distance between the attacker and the goal, the general direction of play, the likelihood of the opponent retaining or gaining control of the ball, and the position and number of defenders. These criteria were not met here.

However, it was handball, so there should have been a free kick and a booking. VAR was not called in because it was not a clear and obvious error that warranted a red card. However, it is worrying that referee John Brooks did not spot the offence.”

This seems to be a fair explanation from an experienced referee. In any case, Vicario was lucky to get away without a warning and to be awarded a free kick in a very dangerous area for the visitors, while the game was 2-1 and still very much open.