Thread by @DaleJohnsonESPN

Okay, let's take a look at Tuesday night's madness in the Premier League, with the Laws and VAR.

- Red cards for David Luiz, Jan Bednarek
- Cancelled Man United pen
- Red for Bernd Leno
- Drama in Germany - offside, deliberate play of ball

As usual, don't shoot the messenger.

Let's start by explaining the Triple Punishment law, brought in from 2016-17.

It states a player is cautioned if the offence "was an attempt to play the ball" and "in all other circumstances (e.g. holding, pulling, pushing, no possibility to play the ball etc.)" it's a red."

So, in general terms, Luiz and Bednarek both denied a goal-scoring opportunity with no attempt to play the ball.

That neither attempted to make a challenge isn't considered, as intent is no longer in the Laws of the Game.

They are better making a poor, desperate tackle.

I'm sure Arsenal and Southampton will both appeal the red cards, so a good one to watch.

Fulham successfully appealed the red for Joachim Andersen at Newcastle in similar circumstances, though the foul was deemed to have occurred earlier and thus not to be DOGSO.

Also, remember the red card shown to Lucas Digne of Everton at Southampton.

Digne did not make a challenge, there was no intent. Southampton appealed, but the red card was upheld (ban reduced from three games to one.)

On the incidents, there's a very good chance Southampton win the Bednarek appeal because I don't think there was any contact (Martial drags his foot and goes down) and it's not even a pen. Mike Dean could have cancelled at the monitor.

I'd expect the Luiz red will stand.

The appeals will be an interesting test of the Law.

Most former refs say the red cards were correct, but there are some (eg Mark Clattenburg) who disagree and feel the accidental nature of the fouls mean a yellow.

But only one of Luiz and Bednarek may win their appeal.

On the cancelled United penalty, the key here is where the contact is. Amazing we have ANOTHER of these.

The foot can be outside the box but foul contact on the line.

The foot can be on the line but foul contact outside the box.

You can see from these examples that contact with the attacking player was deemed on the line.

In the case of the WBA penalty, there was contact on the foot outside the box, but also contact with the right leg which was on the line.

Bernd Leno red card. Key here is he rushing way out of his box and his act of handling deliberately prevents the attacker getting to the ball for a scoring chance.

This differs from a keeper catching a ball marginally outside his box in error, which is only considered a yellow.

A word some VAR drama in the DFB Pokal last night.

Erling Haaland thought he had clinched a 3-1 win for Borussia Dortmund vs. Paderborn in stoppage time, but VAR ruled it out and gave a pen to Paderborn. 3-1 became 2-2 and ET.

But there's more - remember our offside chats?

Haaland scored the winner in the 95th minute, but was in an offside position when Thomas Delaney played the ball.

HOWEVER, Paderborn defender Svante Ingelsson had made a desperate attempt to play the ball and got the faintest of faint touches. That played Haaland onside.

We have talked about this, when we had the case of Fabian Schar for Newcastle against Villa.

Such examples are rare, and it's another example of when a defender is better off just leaving the ball.

Here's Ingelsson's faint touch on the ball.

https://twitter.com/Maexle_bvb/status/1356738749800022022?s=20

The DFB tweet out explanations for all VAR decision.

Here, they set out that Ingelsson’s deliberate play of the ball rendered Haaland onside.

Decision was upheld after a 5 minute VAR review as there was no clear evidence he hadn't touched the ball.

https://twitter.com/dfbschiris/status/1356739465100857345?s=20

Just to add the Wolves offside goal after questions. The VAR tried more than once to plot to a different point of defenders to make Che Adams onside, it still came up as offside. Camera angle misleads.

Also, lines aren't touching so it's still off with Dutch margin of error.