Leeds United vs Leicester: Sky Sports pundit rages at official on ‘ridiculous’ Patson Daka call
Jermaine Beckford slammed the decision to rule out a goal for Patson Daka as Leicester lost at Leeds United, calling it “really bad”.
The Sky Sports pundit reacted after the final whistle on 23 February after the Whites overturned a one-goal deficit to win 3-1 in a dramatic final 10 minutes.
But the decision to rule out the Foxes attacker’s second-half strike with the score at 1-0 for an erroneous offside was blasted by Beckford, who branded the linesman’s flag “ridiculous” as the ball was turned in after coming back off the post from a corner in the 69th minute.
Beckford said (10.24pm): “For me it’s a ridiculous decision made by the linesman. You can see clearly Patson Daka’s onside at the back post. He makes his movement there, brilliant movement.
“Georginio Rutter takes a touch, it’s a big touch, he gambles on it, Patson Daka gets the touch on it, scores, runs off celebrating. There’s nothing wrong at all.
“From here, where we are, we’ve got a great view of the linesman, where he’s stood, and straight away Paul [Heckingbottom] said, ‘Offside. Lino’s got his flag up’. And we all looked at it and thought ‘How? How is he offside?’
“It’s a really bad decision from the linesman there.”
Leeds United get lucky break in win over Foxes
Replays showed Daka wasn’t offside when Yannik Vestergaard’s original header made contact, and the next touch came off Rutter, so it was indeed an error by the assistant.
Once again, with VAR not in effect in the Championship teams have to take the on-field officials’ calls as they are and this time it benefited the Whites.
A second goal at that point may have killed the game off, but given the late three-goal swing was so unexpected then perhaps that would have happened anyway.
As well as some strange officiating both sides were also guilty of wasting a number of opportunities and generally not playing up to their respectively high standards.
But while Leeds United came off second best amid in the chaos in the first half they ultimately ended up major victors as it continued late on, to seemingly open the door to the Championship title with just six points now to the top and off the back of nine-straight wins.
In other Leeds United news, two new attacking talents have just arrived at the club.
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