Referees' chief Howard Webb admits Nottingham Forest SHOULD have had a penalty in Everton defeat... but believes that the first two controversial calls were 'subjective calls' which officials got right

Howard Webb, the head of the Professional Game Match Officials Board, has admitted Nottingham Forest should have had one penalty in their controversial defeat to Everton on April 21.

The visitors to Goodison Park felt that they should have had three spot-kicks awarded in their favour during the Premier League clash, and criticised the officials post-match on social media and in mainstream outlets.

Whilst Webb felt that the first two, a foul and a handball, were 'subjective calls' which were correct, he agreed that the third one - Ashley Young's tackle on Callum Hudson-Odoi - should have been reviewed by the referee if VAR had intervened.

Referee Anthony Taylor said Young played the ball, and VAR officials Stuart Attwell and Simon Long did not see anything to overrule or review the call, even though the footage clearly showed that only Hudson-Odoi made contact with the ball.

Attwell said: 'Both players tussling for the ball. There's a degree of normal contact as they both play the ball in the same space.' 

Webb told Match Officials Mic'd Up: 'I understand why we would have preferred an intervention on this situation. The referee waves away the penalty appeal. The VAR looks at it and asks himself the question, 'Was the non-award clearly and obviously wrong?' and came to the conclusion it wasn't. 

'You hear him describing two players tussling for the ball. He doesn't see a clear action by Young that he considers to be worthy of intervention, one that reaches the threshold of being very clear.

'But we would have preferred an intervention for the referee to go to the screen to make a judgement for himself in this situation and probably would have come out with a different outcome if that would've happened.'

When the show's host Michael Owen asked if people may have to accept that referees are human and will make human errors, Webb replied: 'Yeah, the game is played by human beings, it's officiated by human beings. 

'And obviously our job is to try to ensure that we have a positive impact on the game by identifying correct decisions on the field. This wasn't one. And then when that doesn't happen, the VAR consistently recognises when an error has happened on the field and steps in. 

'But of course they're humans making judgements as well so we always are trying to reduce the number of errors that we make. We get together on a regular basis more than ever before with our VARs to train. We share loads of information online. We give guidance to the officials, we share discussions around why something didn't work out in the way that it should.

'And then ultimately we share that final information to try to ensure that the learning is taken out of every situation and, year on year, reduce those number of errors to the minimal amount that we can.'

Nottingham Forest made a post on X (formerly Twitter) slamming the decision-making of referee Taylor and his team immediately after the match.

Later, Nottingham Forest representative Mark Clattenburg, a former referee, added his own opinions to the matter in an opinion piece for Mail Sport.  

Last night, it was reported that the club could face four FA charges for their responses.

The club, manager Nuno Espirito Santo, defender Neco Williams and 'referee analyst' Clattenburg are set to receive FA charges, with the Premier League considering whether to charge Nottingham Forest for not acting 'with the utmost good faith' in relation to the match and the aftermath. 

Forest's inflammatory social media post claimed that VAR official Stuart Attwell is a Luton Town fan, and that swayed his decision not to get these penalty calls reconsidered.

The Premier League's Key Match Incident panel consists of former players, managers and referees who study every VAR decision to improve future performance. 

Webb publicly accepted that an error was made on the latest monthly edition of 'Match Officials Mic’d Up', which was filmed on Monday night and broadcast on Tuesday. 

However, the first two decisions were not errors in Webb's view.

He said: 'The first two we felt were really subjective calls. The first one involving some contact from Ashley Young on Gio Reyna. There was contact. The referee saw that but didn't feel it was impactful enough to penalise. We've set quite a high threshold for penalising contact all over the field really, but also in the penalty area. It's what the game has asked us to do.

'Not every single contact is a foul and this was one where there was quite minimal contact, consistent with other situations that we've waved away this season. The VAR quite rightly checked that one.

'The second one was a handball penalty situation. Ashley Young involved again. The ball hits his arm. He's moving as he tries to close a cross down from short distance and the referee deemed that the arm was in a natural position and the VAR check completed that one as well - quite understandably, in this subjective zone of handball. So we thought that both of those situations were in line with our expectations.'

Mail Sport previously reported that Webb was set for peace talks with Nottingham Forest’s owners, by playing them the VAR audio of their three penalty appeals.

PGMOL’s protocol is to make VAR audio available to any club that requests it, which Forest did publicly in the days following the 2-0 defeat at Goodison Park. 

Nottingham Forest followed up their 2-0 defeat to Everton with the same scoreline in their loss to Manchester City on Sunday.

They have games against Sheffield United, Chelsea and Burnley as they look to avoid relegation from the Premier League, sitting one point clear of Luton in 18th and two clear of the Clarets in 19th.