Decision not to award Crystal Palace a penalty against Liverpool was utter garbage

Hosts had every right to be furious after Van Dijk got away with blatant pull – the fact that VAR reviewed incident makes it even worse

Liverpool undoubtedly got away with one in their 1-0 victory at Selhurst Park. There was a clear and obvious penalty that should have been awarded to Crystal Palace but, somehow, the officials failed to give it.
As Marc Guehi attempts to get to the ball at the back post of the Liverpool box, Virgil van Dijk blatantly pulls him back to stop any chance of him doing so. Indeed, the Liverpool defender used both hands to commit the foul as if trying to draw attention to the fact he was doing something illegal.
Of course, referees will miss things and, therefore, Simon Hooper is not entirely to blame despite being at fault for making the initial mistake.
But for the VAR to not intervene was frankly pathetic. The whole point of VAR is to correct mistakes, not ignore them for sake of convenience or some other unknown reason.
Should this Virgil Van Dijk pull on Marc Guehi have resulted in a penalty for Crystal Palace? 🤔📺 @tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/Z58MD1eCyR
Was it a clear hold? Yes. Did it interfere with play? Yes. Was it clear and obvious? Yes.
For all of the above reasons, it is absolute nonsense for the penalty not to be awarded and Palace should feel aggrieved.
To make things worse, the Premier League then confirmed the incident had been reviewed by VAR and put out a statement, arguing “that the challenge was not sustained holding and had no impact on the play”.
Pure garbage. Everyone can see it was, in fact, sustained holding and it did impact play – even if Guehi still had some work to do to reach the ball.
Putting out statements like that just confuses everyone when the footage quite clearly shows the opposite.
Officials need to concentrate on applying the law first and foremost. Holding is an offence in law. It really should be as simple as that.