So who is doing the Arsenal vs. Man City title six-pointer? Is it the old guard/“safe pair of hands in Taylor and or Oliver? Surely, can’t be Oliver as he did Arsenal this Saturday. Or someone else?
Taylor confirmed. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7192819/2026/04/13/man-city-arsenal-referee-anthony-taylor/ So, get this: He has Celta Vigo-Freiburg in Spain on Thursday evening. He then has Man City-Arsenal in Manchester late Sunday afternoon. Under 72 hours of recovery time. You can't fly direct Vigo to Manchester commercially. Nor do I think you can get out of Vigo Thursday evening after the match. So Friday is a pretty full travel day and he has one recovery day? Layer in the potential psychological effects if the Europa League match goes sideways or is controversial.
How often, though, is PRO putting a referee on two big matches with the whistle in under 72 hours? We're past the days where referees are getting two whistles in the same MLS matchday week. And I think PRO is pretty good about not burdening referees who have mid-week CONCACAF duty. The travel here can be inherently brutal. But the over-reliance on key names for big matches just isn't the same, so you wouldn't find, say, an Elfath or Dickerson in this sort of spot.
And, speaking from experience, First Class/Business Class on Iberia Air simply ain't what you get on United/Delta. It's basically the same seat as coach, but they leave the middle seat empty.
How on earth has Gabriel got away with that then? 🤯🤯 https://t.co/z5atTQZuPY— EPL Bible (@EPLBible) April 19, 2026 Taylor was excellent today, but i just hate how governing bodies in all leagues have basically normalized this as a yellow card.
Gabriel head butt Haaland but referee no give am red card because e no dey play for Manchester United. pic.twitter.com/4Zcvhu9Com— MUIP (@ManUtdInPidgin) April 19, 2026
As someone who was obviously biased, yeah, Taylor was just fine today. And big Gabby was extremely lucky Haaland didn't make a meal of it and Taylor was lenient.
Just imagine if this was a Barca defender in the UCL pic.twitter.com/VJXCYWiZ0M— Brian (@Bri_an2) April 19, 2026 Anybody else have careless contact on the back of the legs? Or just players colliding as it was adjudged?
Handball decision. Whistle was delayed until well after the goal. I guess for the purpose of allowing VAR review, though I was under the impression that that isn't a thing for attacker fouls. Perhaps there was confusion whether the player committing the handball was the one who scored and whether this was a punishable accidental handball. A handball by Jean-Philippe Mateta keeps us tied at 0 with time running out.Crystal Palace: 0West Ham: 0 pic.twitter.com/vA3BrHPZAK— USA Sports (@usasports) April 20, 2026
I was watching and if you want to characterize that as “accidental” go right ahead! He played it with his arm! No one was upset about the call. BTW, there are some seriously bad teams in the Premier league.
respectfully, the number of games done in one year by Premier League officials is far and away more than a PRO will do.
It's a procedure literally for potential attacking fouls. What else would it be for? If you have a defensive foul before a goal is scored, you'd be playing advantage. No, he's just calling the foul. LIke @Rufusabc wrote, this seems pretty obviously deliberate.
My other guess is he might be checking with the team whether they saw it to confirm before whistling. I had a handball penalty shout this weekend that I'm pretty sure I missed because I wasn't sure which team committed the infraction. I didn't have radios so I had to stick with no call.
You've missed the point of my question. You said you didn't think the delayed whistle relative to VAR was for attacking fouls. I was asking what, other than attacking fouls, the procedure could possibly be for? There is no guess here. He saw a handball. There was an immediate attacking/goal-scoring opportunity. He delayed the whistle until the goal was scored (or opportunity gone) so that VAR could reverse his decision IF it had been wrong. But the decision was already made.
Anyone have the greater context for this? I can't find it in the NBC highlights: pic.twitter.com/unLl7dMOhI— ToffeesNonstop (@ToffeesNonstop) April 25, 2026
I've seen better video but can't embed here. It is worse than I thought. Shocking, really. Could be very consequential for Spurs, too. This is PGMOL's incredible explanation: #WHUEVE – 84’ The referee’s call of no penalty was checked and confirmed by VAR – with it deemed that Fernandes accidentally handled the ball while grappling with an opponent.— Premier League Match Centre (@PLMatchCentre) April 25, 2026
Which, just to really press the absurdity of it all, will not and cannot even become a corner kick one the new protocols reach EPL. Amazing stuff.
Since they gave the goal kick, I’m assuming Attwell had to have told them he didn’t see the handling, right? That leaves the call with VAR to judge handling, and “accidental” is now right up there with “a coming together”. i am a staunch Everton supporter and they have easily had 5-6 contentious handling calls this year, not including the Arsenal match where PGMOL apologized for a missed penalty. I think Attwell just isn’t very good.
They gave Bruno fernandes yellow cards for this ? They clearly don’t want him to break the record pic.twitter.com/LakZTWsg3S— Darren (@MUFCDarren_) May 3, 2026 Forgot the VAR angle here. Just poor refereeing to have zero feel for the game there and be able to say "there is no reason to make that type of tackle there, get him out of the game."
Two SFP red cards at Fulham in the first half. Both needed VAR. Neither should have. First was given as yellow, second was technically not a foul (as Madley initially brought back an advantage that did not materialize) but he did give yellow eventually (to the wrong guy, though then just pretended he didn’t). Doesn’t get much sloppier. But somehow I think people will say this was all good refereeing.
I was gonna say the same thing about Silvas swing out yellow but I suppose it's a pretty universal yellow now.