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So the head of refereeing in this country is absolutely certain that Bowen fouled the Sheffield United defender a few weeks ago in the latest “mic’d up” analysis. Not a Michael Owen fan at all but glad he argued back on the absolute nonsense that he and a unanimous panel agreed it was a foul by Bowen. What hope is there is if he genuinely believes that?
Howard Webb: "A lot of people thought it was a penalty. When you watch it on the TV, it shows a replay that looks like the Sheffield United player is not looking at the ball and bowls into Bowen.
"When VAR looked at that, knowing that the on-field decision by the referee was a free-kick to Sheffield United for a foul from Bowen, he sees quite clearly that Bowen's arm is on the shoulder of Ahmedhodzic and pulls him towards Bowen and they fall over.
"The Sheffield United player is actually looking at the ball most of the time, he's trying to maintain his view of the ball. He only can't do that when he's pulled by Bowen.
"Looking at all the angles we had available, we were able to confirm the on-field decision as a foul to Sheffield United, rather than the penalty most people thought should have been given when people watched it more casually on a TV broadcast.
"Don't forget, the on-field decision is important. The independent panel - the key match incidents (KMI) panel, which has a lot of ex-players on it - that we put all incidents to were unanimous that this was a correct decision and not a penalty for the action by Bowen of pulling the defender onto him and going down.
"Ahmedhodzic is square, he's defending in the way he's meant to defend and he's looking at the ball. There's some jostling, which happens in most situations when balls are coming into the penalty area with players in close proximity, so we're not too concerned about that.
"But then we see the arm coming round, which spins the player and off-balances him and brings him down. That's what the on-field referee saw.
"From a VAR point of view, you're never going to see that as a clear and obvious error."
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