Tottenham Hotspur enjoyed a splendid 3-0 win against Everton at the weekend. And the North Londoners have enjoyed a lot of plaudits following that historic win, given how they became the first away team to take all three points from the Merseysiders’ new stadium.
But it was a tale of set pieces. The visitors had Micky van de Ven rising to meet two and score two, while the hosts had one of their corner goals disallowed.
Le Tissier weighs in on goal controversy
In the 24th minute, Everton defender O’Brien came on the front post on the corner. He headed it past Vicario. And the Blues quite rightly celebrated in a way that showed they had drawn level with Thomas Frank’s side. But then a VAR review followed. And this review ended with referee Craig Pawson ruling out the goal. The reason given was that two of the Merseysiders’ wingers, Iliman Ndiaye and Jack Grealish, were offside. And the duo was also interfering with Vicario’s ability to save the header.
While David Moyes accepted that it was offside and Everton were rightly denied a goal, former PGMOL chief Keith Hackett weighed in after the game, reflecting that it was a questionable decision: “This goal should’ve stood.”
And in the middle of all the controversy, former Premier League striker turned pundit Matt Le Tissier expressed his frustration at how the goal was ruled out. He insisted that the Blues were not fairly treated with that offside call while he lashed into Tottenham keeper Guglielmo Vicario’s ability to save the header. Speaking in an exclusive interview with Football Insider, he said:
“I thought it was a pretty soft goal cancelled out. I thought it was a little bit harsh.
I’m not sure the players right by the goalkeeper really did too much to stop him from trying to save that ball.
“I don’t think he would have saved it anyway. So, yeah, I mean, they can count themselves a little bit unfortunate there, Everton, but Spurs made the best of it and fair play.”
TTLB Opinion
While we feel it was the right call, even if the goal stood, the North Londoners were a far better team than the Blues on the day. Tottenham had shown a lot of superiority when it came to crucial moments. And it was a structural performance as Thomas Frank got the better of Moyes on quite a few facets of the game. So even if the set piece counted, Tottenham would have still taken those three points.
And while there have been a lot of things said about Vicario and his ability to put in saves, he has been quite phenomenal in the past weeks. Given his form and reflexes of late, there was a high probability that he would have still found a way to save that if those two wingers weren’t interfering with his movements despite his problems from set-piece situations.
Do you think Vicario would have saved that if he had a chance to run at it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
