It seems there is now doubt that Leeds United were right to be awarded the penalty that secured their 1-0 win over Crystal Palace on Tuesday.
That’s after Palace manager Patrick Vieira admitted that he would have expected a spot kick to have been given to his side had the incident happened at the other end of the pitch.
With the game locked at 0-0 going into the second minute of five added on at the end of the second half, Liam Cooper’s header from a cross struck the arm of Marc Guehi inside the Palace penalty.
A VAR review then followed, after which referee Kevin Friend duly pointed to the penalty spot.
Up stepped Raphinha, who fired the ball into the bottom corner to secure a very welcome win for Leeds, just their third in the league this season.
Now it seems that despite the decision going against his side, Vieira has no complaints about the decision to award Leeds the penalty.
Speaking about the penalty call after the game, Vieira was quoted by Palace’s official website as saying: “You know, if it was on the other side I would expect the referee to give the penalty. I had the chance to look at it again and, yeah, I believe it was a penalty.”
It does feel like you have to give some credit to Vieira here.
You will quite often see managers argue that a decision should have gone in favour of their side, even when they quite clearly shouldn’t have done.
This therefore, feels like a refreshing degree of honesty from the Palace boss about this decision, and given the importance of the win, the significance of that penalty is huge for Leeds.
Indeed, it will be interesting to see if this proves to be the spark that finally kick starts Leeds’ season, something it feels we have been waiting for quite time some to see now.