Thread by @DaleJohnsonESPN

Here's your Monday VAR thread, this week it includes:

- Arsenal's penalty against Villa, and VAR protocol
- Reds cards for Pogba / Saiss
- Christian Benteke disallowed goal
- Why Mathias Normann was only booked
- Brighton v Man City incidents

Starting with the Arsenal penalty itself.

Referee Craig Pawson thought Matt Targett won the ball first, before contact with Alexandre Lacazette.

But replays show it was the other way around - contact through the man to win the ball - and that's grounds for a penalty review.

So onto the VAR protocol.

I said on Friday that play should continue while a review is completed, but that's not quite right.

VAR protocol says that the referee should try to "avoid having a review after the whistle for the end of the half has been blown."

As we saw with Brighton v Man United, there are times when an incident happens so close to the whistle that it's impossible to avoid a review after it.

However, at Arsenal the VAR, Michael Oliver, indicated to Pawson a check was ongoing straight away, before time was up.

Targett's challenge on Lacazette came at 46.56, with four seconds of the two minutes of added time to be played.

Pawson then allowed play to continue for 45 seconds while the review was ongoing. Then when the ball was in a neutral area he blew to halt play (not for half-time).

The error in protocol is that the referee should stop play once added time was up (not blow for HT), and indicate to the players a review is ongoing and not to leave the field.

Playing on can present unintended consequences, should a review not result in a VAR intervention.

For instance, what if Aston Villa had scored in the additional time, but the VAR review decided it wasn't a penalty to Arsenal?

That would mean Aston Villa benefit with a goal from time that shouldn't have been played.

(It could, of course, also apply to Arsenal).

It's important to be clear that Pawson didn't blow for half-time, and only to stop play for the review.

It means the penalty is taken with the clock back at 46.56.

This is because time should not be lost (but we know it often is) - so play restarts at the time of the incident.

That means Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang took the penalty with 4 seconds left on the watch, which enabled him to score the rebound.

Pawson then restarted with the kickoff, and blew for HT straight away with time then up.

This part of the protocol was applied correctly.

If Pawson HAD blown for half-time, and then been made aware of the VAR review, any penalty awarded would have been a one-shot event.

Aubameyang would not be able to score the rebound, and there would be no centre-circle kick-off afterwards.

Now Paul Pogba's red card for his challenge on Naby Keita, and a comparison with Romain Saiss (yellow) on Raphinha.

There is very little difference between the two challenges in themselves, except of course who the VAR was.

It looks a clear case of a red card review for Saiss' challenge.

Ref Robert Jones gave a free-kick (and yellow) for handball, not a foul, so clearly didn't see the incident.

Saiss catches Raphinha way above the ankle with the sole of the boot and a degree of force.

There will always be a question of consistency across 23 VARs, it's impossible to with so many officials on subjective decisions.

But you can start to see trends and understand where some VARs might need to improve.

The VAR in the Leeds game was Peter Bankes, who seems to be struggling on red-card reviews.

For instance, he advised the VAR red card for Fabian Balbuena which was overturned on appeal, and didn't advise a red-card review for James McArthur's challenge on Bukayo Saka on Monday.

Bankes was also the VAR on Brighton vs. Leicester last month, missing the foul by Neal Maupay on Jannik Vestergaard that led directly to Brighton's penalty.

Have to question why the VAR didn't advise a review when the ref didn't even see a foul challenge on Raphinha.

There were several other possible red-card incidents in the Man United v Liverpool game (Ronaldo, Fred, Fernandes, Maguire), which I don't have time to go into individually.

But in each case a yellow card was an acceptable outcome so VAR would not get involved.

Moving on...

Unfortunately for Crystal Palace and Christian Benteke, Marc Guehi pulls down Ciaran Clark and prevents him from challenging for the ball.

No doubt that pulling in the box has always had inconsistency from officials, but VAR Lee Mason got this one right.

Had some question as to why Norwich's Mathias Normann wasn't sent off for handball, when Reece James was at Liverpool.

Difference is James denied a goal on the line, whereas there is enough doubt that Normann was blocking a shot on target (so not certain it was a goal).

Brighton v Man City.

It was correct to award the first goal, as Robert Sanchez failed to claim when he tried to jump through Gabriel Jesus.

Jesus only jumped for the ball, and didn't have his arms raised against the goalkeeper.

The second incident was the offside in the build-up to Brighton's penalty.

While VAR protocol means it's possible to cancel the penalty, it's far better VAR doesn't get involved.

16 seconds and 7 passes until the goal, and crucially the City defence was set.

Chelsea's Timo Werner had a goal disallowed against Southampton earlier this month for a foul back in the build-up.

It didn't feel right then, nor would it have done to go so far back to an inconsequential point in this move to cancel a penalty.