Honestly, this is 100% foul on Tomiasu, and the only reason it was not given is that he stayed on his feet as long as possible. This is not the first time we’ve seen that, instead of rewarding this behaviour, the referees punish it by not giving fouls and then VAR doesn’t overrule them because they are not classified as obvious mistakes…
The problem is consistency from refs. In the first half there were a few fouls given against Arsenal that were far softer pushes. You cant say some are fouls and then some arent when the ones that arent are clearly worse. If that push isnt a fou; then there are a handful that were given against Arsenal as fouls that shouldnt be.
This is the argument every liverpool fan has about salah, he will never shake the reputation of diving/going down easily from his first year or two with us. But since then he’s had more touches than anyone in the box/final third and won the least amount of fouls, he literally gets dragged to the floor every single game now and nothing is given, which forces him to have to “exaggerate contact” or flop to the floor to get anything, and if anything, he doesn’t do this to the outrage of the fans who think he’s too honest. It’s mental
The whole fouling is a joke all players are just little princesses touch them at all and the fall over arsenal spurs Newcastle use it as tactic especially around the 18yard box There’s worse fouls in women’s football The don’t roll around holding there leg as if it’s broken
Weren’t a foul at all, Tomi had hold of his shirt, it was just a scuffle for control and Tomi happened to fall. I don’t want to see those given, it’s a physical game.
Footballs always kind of had the unofficial rule that if you don’t go down you’re almost asking for the advantage. Its rubbish, but its also a slight difference between a dive and going down, there has to be contact for the 2nd.
Now with VAR its significantly worse. You not only need to go down, you then need to scream and shout. The best example of this for me was the Man City penalty v Man United. Rodri gets an arm across the chest, goes down, then screams at the ref like he was just punched in the face. This is the way to guarantee a review on a challenge that is so often just seen as part of football.