Arsene Wenger has given his verdict on VAR after its usage during Arsenal’s Carabao Cup semi-final meeting with Chelsea.

VAR was in use during the Carabao Cup semi-final between Arsenal and Chelsea on Wednesday night. Referee Martin Atkinson checked a couple of incidents with the VAR team, but didn’t see the need to review any decisions.

Arsene Wenger had few issues with the system during the game but thought there was one incident that took too long and looked strange. “There were only two opportunities for them to intervene,” he said, as reported by Arsenal.com.

“The first one was straight away because the ball went out, but the second one for me it would look a bit strange after the game has gone on for a while and then there is a corner and then to come back to a penalty would look strange, because if the referee is uncertain maybe he should be able to block straight away.

wenger southampton
Arsene Wenger.

“If there is not penalty you give it to the defending team, because it looks a bit strange to go on for two minutes for example sometimes and then to come back, everybody forgot what happened basically. You cannot intervene straight away, it’s frustrating.”

The incident he’s referring to was when Danny Welbeck tackled Cesc Fabregas in the Arsenal penalty area. Atkinson gave a corner and play was set to resume, until he stopped play and checked to see if it wasn’t a penalty.

Had Welbeck made contact with Fabregas, Atkinson could have pulled play back and awarded a penalty. Arsenal also had a potential penalty checked.

Victor Moses made about as much contact on Ainsley Maitland-Niles as Hector Bellerin did on Eden Hazard last week. However, Atkinson didn’t make a “clear and obvious mistake”, therefore a penalty wasn’t given.

There’ll be issues with the system, but they can only be ironed out after it’s been given a go.