JOSH KING has won Fulham’s Goal of the Month award for August for his near-post strike against Chelsea – even though VAR ruled it out.
The 18-year-old tore through the Blues’ defence and cut onto his right foot before smashing the ball low, past Robert Sanchez to give Fulham the lead.
That was before VAR intervened and ruled it out for a foul in the build-up by Rodrigo Muniz on Trevoh Chalobah.
The Brazilian had stood on Chalobah’s foot during a turn on the halfway line.
Fulham’s decision to subsequently include King’s fine finish in the voting for their Goal of the Month award raised eyebrows, but he has today been announced as the winner, raking in 83.1% of the fans’ votes.
At the time, Fulham fans and Joe Cole on commentary were left raging by the decision, which PGMOL later admitted they got wrong.
Chelsea legend Cole claimed: “First of all, Chelsea are very lucky.
“I’m happy it’s not a goal, but for football’s sake, it’s not a foul. He’s got his body, yes there’s contact, but it’s not a foul.
“To sanitise football like that, a Fulham 18-year-old ran away and scored his first goal in the Premier League, and they take that off him.”
“It’s not a tickling contest, I don’t like the nitpicking, he stood on Chalobah’s ankle and there was contact and I can understand rules of the game.
“It wasn’t a careless challenge, it was just two professional footballers going in for a challenge and there’s a little bit of contact.
“I’m happy it’s not a goal from Chelsea’s perspective, but I don’t like it in football when you’re chalking off goals for that, it makes it too sanitised for me.”
Rob Jones at the time said: “After review, Fulham number nine (Muniz) commits a careless challenge, stands on the foot of the Chelsea defender, therefore we disallow the goal and we restart with a Chelsea free kick. There would be no further action.”
However, just four days later, PGMOL chief refereeing officer Howard Webb said last week that the decision to disallow King’s goal was a “misjudgement”, and a panel agreed that VAR Michael Salisbury was wrong to intervene and referee Rob Jones was wrong to disallow the goal.
VAR on the day Michael Salibsury will not be officiating the Premier League’s return this weekend in any capacity following PGMOL’s admittance of a mistake, while the referee will be the fourth official in West Ham’s tie at home to Tottenham.
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