Eberechi Eze’s first goal against Tottenham in the north London derby has reignited the debate around the offside rule in the Premier League.
The Arsenal forward found space inside the Tottenham box to slam the Gunners into a deserved two-goal lead before half-time at the Emirates.
But Spurs goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario appealed that he could not see the ball because there were offside Arsenal players blocking his view.
VAR checked the incident, and a statement from the Premier League Match Centre said: “The referee’s call of goal was checked and confirmed by VAR – with it deemed that there were no Arsenal players in the line of vision of the goalkeeper, and they made no movement to impact an opponent while in an offside position.”
Eze’s goal comes just a few weeks after Virgil van Dijk’s equaliser against Manchester City was disallowed because Andy Robertson was ruled to have made an “obvious action directly in front of the goalkeeper” while being in an offside position.
Replays showed that Martin Zubimendi and Trossard were both blocking Vicario’s view of Eze’s shot while standing in an offside position, although they were also stood behind Tottenham defenders Micky van de Ven and Kevin Danso.
On Sky Sports, former Tottenham striker Les Ferdinand was critical of Tottenham’s defensive approach to the derby but said he couldn’t understand why the Eze goal was not disallowed.
“I will say, I don't understand how this [Arsenal players] doesn't affect the goalkeepers sight [on the second goal],” Ferdinand said. “I'm not sure how that's not been looked at."
Eze went on to complete a hat-trick in Arsenal’s 4-1 win, becoming the first player to score a north London derby hat-trick since Alan Sunderland in 1978.
Tottenham goalkeeper Vicario, however, did not blame Tottenham’s defeat on Eze’s first goal but accepted thee players standing in an offside position were blocking his view.
“There were three people in front of me so of course they impacted me,” he told Sky Sports. “But we didn't lose the game for that."
