Frank Lampard believes that VAR inconsistencies are bringing the game to a dangerous place after Watford were awarded a late penalty when Jorginho was judged to have tripped Gerard Deulofeu following a lengthy review in Chelsea's 2-1 win at Vicarage Road.
The Blues endured a nervy ending to a game that they had dominated because of the spot kick which Deulofeu converted, with Kepa making a 96th-minute save to deny Ben Foster, the Watford goalkeeper who had saved his team from a hiding.
The Premier League, referees and managers met last week to discuss VAR and Lampard said that the conclusion was that penalties would only be rewarded if they were clear and obvious.
However referee Anthony Taylor did not award the spot kick until the VAR had spent more than two minutes replaying footage of Jorginho's challenge on Deulofeu, indicating that it was not a cut and dry decision.
"I have to be careful really but last week we saw a change in VAR, a clear change in penalties getting overturned," Lampard said. "I was at a managers' meeting in midweek and we spoke a lot about it.
"The absolute consensus from managers, referees, the Premier League was that penalties or decisions — this is what I took from the meeting,anyway — are not going to get overturned unless they’re absolutely clear and obvious, and the VAR absolutely saw something that the referee on the pitch didn’t see.
"This didn’t, it nowhere near showed that, and the longer it took, the more worried I got."
Lampard also referenced Callum Hudson-Odoi's yellow card away to Burnley seven days ago when he went down under pressure from Matt Lowton but was judged to have dived by the VAR after the on-field referee Michael Oliver had initially pointed to the spot.
"I’m so, so surprised from coming away on Thursday from that meeting to have that decision today," he continued. "And then I reference back one week to Hudson-Odoi, he goes down, has a hand on the back, gets a yellow card and that is overturned the other way round.
"We’re not in a great place with it, are we? Anything that takes that long means there’s something they’re not sure about, so why aren’t we using the screen at the side of the pitch?
"I know it’s a bit contentious, I know it shouldn’t be because every fan might call for it. There might be pressure on referees, but if we’re going to say that there might be grey areas in turning over decisions because one referee somewhere else thinks it was more of a penalty than the referee on the pitch did, there we’re in a really dangerous place and you’re going to be tossing a coin every week to see what decision you’re going to get."
