Lampard Says VAR 'Didn't Do Its Job' as Three Calls Go Against Coventry at Everton

Frank Lampard did not wait for the questions to come to him. Coventry had just lost 3-1 at Everton on Friday Night Football, and the manager’s verdict on the night was ready before the first one was asked: VAR, he said, did not do its job. Three reviews went against his side at Hill Dickinson Stadium, a hair pull, a penalty appeal and a handball question, and none of them went Coventry’s way. The score is the background here. The story is what the officials saw, what they decided, and what Lampard said about it afterwards, in the bluntest terms a manager can use without inviting a charge.

What happened in the first half?

Coventry were the better side of the argument before they were the worse side of the scoreline. Late in the first half, James Tarkowski rose to defend a high ball into the box. As he did, he caught Ethan Pinnock with an elbow, and he also appeared to pull the hair of Caleb Yirenkyi. VAR looked at the incident, especially the elbow, but nothing was given in terms of a card or a penalty, and the Premier League Match Centre issued no communication on whether the hair pull itself was reviewed. That silence matters, because the league issued new guidance this summer that Sky Sports quotes in full: a red card will be issued when there is a clear and deliberate action to pull an opponent’s hair with excessive force and brutality, and a yellow card when the action is deemed to be without excessive force or brutality.

Lampard’s reading of the incident was that the guidance had already answered it. “The first-half decision on Tarkowski got checked. Seeing it back, he pulls on Caleb’s hair while competing with Ethan,” he told Sky Sports. “I thought the rules were clear. I know they’ve changed the rules so it’s no red card, I get that too. But he’s pulling on his hair and [Yirenkyi] can’t get his momentum to jump. I think it’s a foul and a penalty and they decided no.” Jamie Redknapp, on Friday Night Football, agreed with the foul and not the card: “Yirenkyi goes up, Tarkowski gets hold of his hair. He yanks it down. Is it excessive force? Probably not, but he pulls his hair, stopping any elevation. It’s a definite penalty for me. It’s a foul. It’s not a red card anymore but it’s definitely a foul.” It is the same split the league has been living with all season: Vinicius was sent off for a hair pull at Villarreal last month, and Tarkowski was not even booked for one at Everton.

What happened to Awoniyi after the break?

The second call came at the start of the second half, and it was the one Lampard could least believe. Taiwo Awoniyi drove into the box with Vitalii Mykolenko behind him, and there was contact from behind that sent the striker down. Referee Stuart Attwell said no penalty on the pitch, and the VAR review deemed the contact to be outside the box. That was the end of it, officially. Lampard’s version of the geometry was different: “I thought the one on Taiwo running through, it’s a clear foul that the referee doesn’t give in-game. I can’t believe that because it’s clear. Maybe he waited for VAR because it was on the borderline. But as I see it, Taiwo’s foot is entering the box and his knee and the back of his knee is on the line of the box, which is a penalty.”

Redknapp was blunter still. “It’s a definite penalty and it’s rubbish from the VAR. It’s a poor decision. It’s a definite foul, they rush it too quickly, and his foot’s on the line. VAR said it was outside the box, but it’s on the line. If you’re on the line, you’re in the box.” The frustration is familiar to anyone who has watched a VAR line call this season: Soucek won the ball outside the box and QPR still got a penalty in October, and Brennan Johnson’s goal at Hull was ruled out by a subjective offside that Everton themselves had seen before. The technology keeps producing decisions that look right in the room and wrong on the screen, and Lampard’s is the latest complaint about the gap between the two.

What about Barry’s second goal?

The third incident decided the game, and it was the quickest check of the night. Yann Gboho had put Coventry ahead seven minutes into the second half, his first goal for the club, and Thierno Barry answered with two goals in five minutes: an equaliser from Mykolenko’s cross in the 56th minute, then the lead in the 61st, bundling home from Tyrique George’s cross with the ball bouncing wildly. There was a question of handball before the second goal, and VAR checked it, but found no conclusive evidence and the goal was allowed to stand. Friday Night Football later revealed what VAR official Timothy Wood had said in his deliberations: “Okay, that’s his side, that’s definitely not hand. Confirming on-field decision of goal.”

Lampard’s objection was as much about the speed as the call. “Barry’s second goal comes off his hand,” he said. “His last touch flicks it in the net. It was a really quick check as well. People may disagree, but it’s my opinion.” Barry’s own verdict was shorter: “A goal is a goal! I scored two goals today. It’s the job of the striker to score.” Redknapp, who had spent five to ten minutes looking at the incident frame by frame, thought it did touch Barry’s hand, but understood why VAR did not intervene: “When you’re asking VAR to intervene and disallow the goal, it’s difficult. I understand why VAR didn’t give it because it’s not clear and obvious enough. It brushes his fingers. It’s accidental as well.” That is the honest version of the argument, and it is also the one Lampard cannot accept: a goal that brushes a hand, checked in seconds, standing because the evidence was not conclusive enough to overturn it.

What did Lampard say, in full?

He said it twice, once in the press conference and once to Sky Sports, and the words were the same both times. “I hate to sound like a moaner. It’s a football match and if you win the game, that can happen here. I’ve worked here and know the momentum swings in the game. I’m not trying to talk about the circumstances of the actual football, but when big decisions change games, they absolutely do. It’s disappointing. VAR is there for that and it didn’t do its job.” The “I’ve worked here” is doing quiet work in that answer: Lampard managed Everton, and he knows what a Friday night at the Hill Dickinson Stadium feels like when the momentum turns. He was not claiming a conspiracy. He was claiming that three reviews, all of them close, all of them going one way, is a failure of the system that was built to catch exactly these calls.

It is not the first time this season he has been in this argument. Lampard thought VAR would cancel Marmoush’s goal in October, and said so in public while choosing his words carefully, because managers get fined for saying plainly that a check was wrong. The sentence he did say then, that he thought VAR would cancel it, was the strongest version available to him. Friday night’s version was stronger, because this time there were three of them, and because the audio of Wood’s own deliberation is now public. The system explained itself, and Lampard’s answer is that the explanation is not good enough.

What did Everton say?

David Moyes did not dismiss the complaints, which is the most telling part of the night. Asked whether he was bothered by Coventry’s calls, the Everton boss told Sky Sports: “I’m bothered because we want it [the result] to be right, but we’ve had a few decisions recently where we don’t think have gone our way. There was one possibly at Newcastle but there was one at Man City last season in a league game which was hugely important for us regarding getting into Europe. Sometimes they go for you, sometimes they don’t. If they were going against me, I’d be complaining a bit more.” Everton won 3-1 and moved into fifth, with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall adding the third after Barry’s double, and Gravenberch’s red card split the verdicts at Anfield in the same week the league was already arguing about what VAR is for. Moyes has been on both sides of that argument in a fortnight, and he knows it.

What happens next?

The next step belongs to the officials, not the managers. The Premier League Match Centre has said nothing about the hair pull review, and a statement explaining all three checks would do more than any fine to settle the argument. Lampard has not been charged for his comments, and his framing, that the system failed rather than the referee, gives the league room to answer the substance instead of punishing the tone. Coventry’s next game is the first chance to put a night defined by three reviews behind them, and Everton’s is the first chance to show that fifth place is a position rather than a moment. The three calls will keep travelling either way: a hair pull the new guidance was written for, a line call the VAR rushed, and a handball checked in seconds, all in one game, all going one way.