Premier League issue explanation after referee overrules VAR in rare incident

The Premier League have come out and explained why referee Darren England chose to stick by his decision despite a VAR review as he denied Fulham's appeals for a penalty.

The Cottagers lost 3-1 at home to but the hosts will have thought they were destined to get a penalty as the official was asked to review a handball by Vitalii Mykolenko - only to stick with his original call.

were searching for a consolation strike late into stoppage time and thought they were on for a penalty when the referee was sent to the monitor. Originally he had waved away appeals for a handball against Mykolenko, but officials almost always change their minds upon review.

England though stuck to his guns and felt that the Everton star's arm, despite being struck by the ball, was in a natural position and chose to resume the game.

The Match Centre said: "VAR checked the referee’s call of no penalty for a possible handball by Mykolenko – and deemed that his arm way away from his body, therefore recommended an on-field review. Upon review, the referee deemed that Mykolenko’s arm was in a justifiable position given his actions and retained the original decision of no penalty."

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Toffees boss Moyes applauded the decision having surely expected the official to u-turn on his original decision. He said: "I clapped him. I would have had a Mexican wave. I saw it on the ipad and I saw the boy was running so I don't know where you'd expect his hands to be.

"Isn't it great we have someone who is willing to go to the screen and stick with his decision? We want referees to go by their own decision, and from what I've seen the correct decision."

Everton will head back to Merseyside will all three points as they ended a run of three games without a win in west London. Mykolenko, who will have been fearing a penalty against him, was the man who began Everton's comeback after they had trailed at half-time. Michael Keane put them ahead before Beto put the Toffees 3-1 ahead with 17 minutes remaining on the clock.

Moyes added: "It didn't look [like it would go] that way after the first 20, 25 minutes. I thought we were terrible on the ball but we stuck at it. We are a resilient crew and the players did a good job in the end."

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