Arsenal drew 1-1 with Chelsea on Sunday evening, but it appears the host’s goal should have been disallowed for offside.
In a fiery encounter with Chelsea on Sunday, the hosts probably started the better of the two teams, but they were dealt a major blow when Moises Caicedo committed a dangerous challenge and earned himself a red card.
The expectation was that Arsenal would go on to win the game, but Chelsea shocked the Gunners early in the second half by taking an unexpected lead.
That changed the picture, with Arsenal’s momentum halted and Mikel Arteta’s side needing two goals against a Chelsea side happy to sit deep and waste time for much of the remainder of the match.
Yet it seems Chelsea’s opening goal should have been ruled out, with footage of the incident showing an apparent offside missed by VAR.
As you can see in the freeze-frame above, when Trevoh Chalobah made contact with the ball, Enzo Fernandez was standing beyond all of Arsenal’s defenders and the ball itself. The only Arsenal player closer to the Gunners’ goalline was David Raya.
Simply standing in an offside position doesn’t constitute an offside offence, but a player commits an offence if they then interfere with an opponent, challenge an opponent for the ball, or clearly attempt to play a ball which is close when this action impacts on an opponent, among other things.
Enzo certainly does this, as he jumps for the ball when in direct contact with Cristhian Mosquera, the closest Arsenal player to keeping the ball out of the net. He also has a hand on the back of Piero Hincapie, potentially preventing the Ecuadorian defender from challenging for the ball.
So why wasn’t the goal ruled out? After all, the Premier League are using a semi-automated offside system now, aren’t they?
The answer is yes, but the emphasis in this case should be on semi-automated. As Fernandez didn’t touch the ball, he wouldn’t be automatically ruled offside, and it would be up to the VAR team to manually review whether or not he’d become active in the play.
By the letter of the law, it seems pretty clear Enzo did indeed make himself active by jumping for the ball (after it was played) whilst in contact with multiple Arsenal players attempting to defend the chance.
But evidently the VAR team didn’t see it that way, and it’s not entirely clear why not.
The match finished 1-1, with Mikel Merino scoring an equaliser later in the half. Arsenal remain top of the league and six points clear of Chelsea, but Manchester City have now cut the gap to the Premier League leaders to five points.