Former referee Keith Hackett has urged Michael Oliver to request not to work with Darren England after the VAR official failed to overturn the red card for Arsenal’s Myles Lewis-Skelly.
Myles Lewis-Skelly was sent off for Arsenal against Wolves on Saturday after tripping a counter-attacking opponent in the 43rd minute.
A yellow card seemed like the obvious choice, but Michael Oliver instead brandished a red, reducing Arsenal to 10 men and earning Lewis-Skelly a three-match ban.
Former referee Keith Hackett has insisted it was clearly the wrong decision.
“It was a reckless challenge at worst,” Hackett said (via The Sunday Telegraph Sport’s print edition on Sunday, January 26th, 2025). “It does not fulfil the criteria for serious foul play. It is a major error by the referee.”
Hackett went on to criticise the VAR and assistant VAR – Darren England and Adrian Holmes – as the pair failed to overturn the decision or recommend a review.
“It was a clear and obvious error,” Hackett wrote on Twitter. “VAR Darren England, AVAR Adrian Holmes. [If you’re] afraid to send Oliver to the screen, frankly you would not be appointed to [an] EPL game for a month.
“Yes, that’s how bad that decision was. Spend a few weeks receiving the appropriate operational advice.
“Michael Oliver – that is not a red card and if I was you I would tell [Howard] Webb that you do not want to work with your VAR Darren England. Between you, it was a disaster to send off that Arsenal player.”
It was a poor decision by Oliver in the first place, but it’s fair to point out that he hasn’t been helped by his VAR officials.
Oliver only gave Joao Gomes a yellow card for a worse challenge later in the game, and the VAR officials didn’t intervene once again. So they thought Lewis-Skelly’s foul was clearly a red card, with no need for a review, but that an even worse foul was clearly a yellow card, with no need for a review.
In real time, you can perhaps cut Oliver a little slack that he got both calls wrong. It’s certainly not ideal for a top referee to get the big calls wrong, but it happens.
It’s much worse that the people sitting in a studio watching countless replays have still messed up twice.