VAR MISSES BLATANT HANDBALL IN 1-0 MAN CITY DEFEAT

Referee John Brooks and his VAR team may have made a big mistake this weekend as they failed to punish Manchester City defender Rico Lewis for a handball inside his own box.

What's the latest on Man City vs Brentford?

The Cityzens sealed the Premier League title last weekend and so had nothing on the line as they made the trip to West London to take on Brentford.

And having lost to the Bees at the Etihad earlier on in the campaign, Pep Guardiola's men were once again not at their best when facing Thomas Frank and co.

In the end, a single goal from Ethan Pinnock – coming via a well-worked free-kick routine – was enough to seal all three points for Brentford who have now finished ninth in the league

However, the home side potentially could have won the game by an even greater margin had Brooks pointed to the spot when the ball clearly hit Lewis' arm inside his own box.

As you can see in the image below, taken from the Sky Sports highlights package, the Man City player is potentially lucky to get away with this one.

Was this a penalty for Brentford?

The incident occurs when Brentford come forward and Vitaly Janelt cuts a low ball into the box for Ben Mee to attack.

The defender takes a slightly heavy touch and then stretches to flick the ball towards goal but Lewis comes across to block it.

He does just that but uses his hand to stop the ball from continuing towards goal before City eventually clear their lines.

The commentator notes that "VAR are going to have to get involved" but referee Brookes was not advised to change his initial decision and so no penalty was awarded.

In the end, it wasn't too costly for Brentford as they still won the game and both teams could come away from the match with smiles on their faces with City obviously the league winners even before kick-off. Although Guardiola may have been disappointed as his team's run of 25 matches unbeaten in all competitions came to an end.

After the final whistle, Bees boss Frank spoke about how delighted he was for his team even if they couldn't quite secure a finish in one of the European spots.

He told Sky Sports (via BBC Sport): "The team deserve a lot of praise. [The win] sums up a fantastic season.

"Sometimes you need to look back where we've actually come from. To finish ninth with 59 points and the second-lowest budget is incredible. Now we want to have a rest and come back as strong as possible."

2023-05-29T11:24:48Z dg43tfdfdgfd