The debate will rage. On TV, Rio Ferdinand flip-flopped, Robbie Savage saw nothing wrong, but thought that VAR would, ex-England goalkeeper Rachel Brown-Finnis sided with her union, while Rob Edwards was as magnanimous as ever. But for once, the technology and those using it got a controversial decision right.
Let’s be clear, the only reason there is a debate at all about whether Elijah Adebayo fouled Burnley stopper James Trafford, as Carlton Morris headed a huge goal for Luton and their Premier League survival bid, is that goalkeepers are given far too much protection.
For Clarets boss Vincent Kompany, he saw the coming together as it has been for seemingly time immemorial. A foul. That’s no surprise. He saw the Hatters and VAR snatch away a huge Premier League home win. He was also a centre back and, despite his undoubted class, a fully signed up disciple of the defensive dark arts.
The only real surprise is that VAR saw Trafford’s attempt for what it was. Smoke and mirrors. A usually convenient cloud on nonsense to distract, in this case, from woefully misjudging Alfie Doughty’s injury time cross.
Everywhere outside the penalty area, such a collision is waved away. Nothing to see here. But the minute a goalkeeper gets the slightest touch they expect the whistle. Trafford’s action of theatrically throwing himself to the deck – and he’s a 6ft 3ins grown man – was merely a charade that, nine times out of ten, draws sympathy from the referee.
There is no law that gifts goalies such protections, but we’ve been duped and conditioned into believing in some sort of unwritten gentleman’s agreement.
We’ve collectively drunk the Kool-Aid to such a degree that vast swathes of football aficionados can’t see it any other way.
One Burnley fan even phoned up talkSPORT while his family were literally crying in the background to complain about the perceived injustice of it all, obvious to the fact he’ll likely now become a meme.
Some pundits too, could not see anything other than the status quo.
On TNT Sports, Brown-Finnis said: “Ninety-nine times out of 100, that is given as a foul against the goalkeeper. Adebayo is not looking at the ball, he’s not looking to play the ball and he impedes James Trafford. Has it interfered with the goalkeeper? Yes, absolutely.”
OK, that’s maybe no surprise. She played in goal and stoppers stick together. Always.
Again, if you’ve been indoctrinated into the porcelain doll view of goalies, even the many replays turn into an Orwellian exercise of rejecting the evidence of your eyes and ears.
Believe not that in the split-second before the contact, Trafford’s knees are clearly in no position to suggest he was in the process of leaping to pick Doughty’s cross out of the sky.
Believe not that when the contact happens the ball was already beyond the England Under-20 custodian’s reach.
Believe not that Trafford instinctively knows he’s in no man’s land, having got the flight of the cross completely wrong.
And, finally, believe not that his decision to throw his huge frame to the turf is a symptom of a lifetime of indulged and disproportionally unfair penalty box protection.
Won’t somebody please think of the strikers! Do they not have the right just to stand there?
Ex Manchester United hero Ferdinand knew this to be true but just couldn’t bring himself to fully escape the matrix.
“Trafford is disappointed, he thought he should have got a foul, there was contact,” the former defender told the TV audience.
“I sympathise with him in a way. I think the way the game is officiated these days, the referee will blow up. Contact doesn’t always mean it’s going to be a foul.”
On co-commentary, called it right but even he had to pay lip service to this idea of this keeper’s protection racket.
“On that occasion I think it’s the correct decision that a goal was given. I don’t think it was a foul,” he said while a caveating as VAR deliberated for what seemed eons that he thought the goal would be ruled out.
This decision should be a watershed moment, a turning point for how favourably unfair goalkeepers are treated. It won’t be, but it should.
This is not a call back to the 1958 FA Cup final when Nat Lofthouse legitimately shoved Manchester United’s Harry Gregg into the net to score.
It’s just a call to redress the balance that has for too long persecuted attackers for merely being in the way.
PGMOL called it a collision. The distinction that Kompany could not wrap his head around was that a collision does not necessarily mean a foul.
His goalie got it wrong, his bluff was at long last called and had he just stayed on his line, the Clarets would’ve bagged a big boost in their bid to survive the drop.
The psychological effect of this could be extremely damaging for Burnley.
They were already wrestling with the fact that no team with less than 15 points after 20 games had avoided relegation from the Premier League. They’re now on 12.
Town, on the other hand, with 16 points have now exceeded that total and the psychological boost could be huge.
Certainly if you’re a believer in the scientifically disproven theory that these things even themselves, then Morris’ first goal since a September goes some way to atone for the last-gasp heartbreak experienced against Liverpool and Arsenal.
Ross Barkley called the timing of the equaliser “pivotal” and there’s no question that, of their newly-promoted peers, the Hatters have for a while now looked the most likely to preserve their top-flight status.
Like last season’s late, late show against Norwich that saw Cauley Woodrow claim Edwards’ first points as Town manager, timing is everything.
That result was a springboard to promotion success, a defining of Luton’s identity under the current boss and there’s every chance that this Turf Moor controversy could provide a similar platform for arguably the greatest against-all-odds success of Luton’s remarkable recent history.
That remains to be seen, but what it showed in spades, outside of the VAR circus, is that this Town team simply do not give up. And that is not up for debate.
