Referees chief Howard Webb has suggested that Wolverhampton Wanderers were denied a penalty against Manchester United on August 14 because of 'over-thinking'.
In the final seconds of the Premier League fixture at Old Trafford, United goalkeeper Andre Onana misjudged a cross and clattered into Sasa Kalajdzic, who had Craig Dawson behind him.
Having not made any connection with the ball, it appeared likely that Wolves - who were 1-0 down at the time - would receive a last-gasp chance to equalise at the Theatre of Dreams despite being denied a spot kick by the on-field referee.
However, despite brief deliberation in the VAR room, it was ruled that it was not a clear and obvious error, while Wolves head coach Gary O'Neil was booked for his protests.
Within an hour of the full-time whistle, O'Neil had received an apology, while Wolves were presented with the same courtesy in the days after the match.
On Tuesday night, the first episode of 'Match Officials: Mic'd Up' was broadcast, showing the conversations that took place between referee Simon Hooper and VAR.
Hooper initially said: "No way, that's a collision, we don't give those", with VAR official Michael Salisbury countering that he disagreed with Hooper's view.
Salisbury replied: "You'll want to view this because I think Onana collides into it. He tries to go to the ball and he makes aerial contact with the Wolves player. It's late and it's clumsy in my opinion. Dawson wins the header, but it's late, very late in the aerial challenge.
Instead, Salisbury later went back on his first take, adding: "I think because the Wolves player doesn't head the ball, yeah because Dawson heads it, therefore it's a normal collision as they've both challenged the ball. Check complete."
Reacting to the exchange, Webb said: "I think from the outset I want to say that should have led to an intervention by VAR which should have seen a video review being recommended and the referee should have gone to the screen. I'm confident he would have seen the images we've seen and awarded a penalty.
"We see the VAR going through the checking phase while the penalty is not awarded. He starts to go down the road of recommending a review, but then he sort of overthinks it a little bit.
"Sometimes VARs can do that. They're trying to identify what the game would expect in terms of what is and what isn't a clear and obvious error. When he sees these two come together we know that sometimes that can happen and it's not a foul.
"We acknowledged that as an error in the opening week which was of course disappointing. But we'll try going forward to ensure that type of error doesn't happen again."
Wolves have since lost two of their next three top-flight fixtures, leaving the West Midlands outfit in 15th position in the standings after four matches. body check tags ::
