Watch: Chelsea get lucky as Havertz escapes red card after brutal elbow
Chelsea got lucky against Newcastle in their Premier League clash when Kai Havertz avoided a red card for his first-half elbow on Dan Burn before he went on to score a late winner for the Blues.
Late on in the first half, both Havertz and Burn jumped for the ball, with the German beating into the Geordie defender to the ball.
But Burn, who at 6″7 towers over the Chelsea player, collapsed to the floor after missing out on the ball.
He was holding his head, and it became quickly apparent he had received a nasty cut to the side of his forehead whilst competing for the ball.
The referee quickly stopped play and awarded Havertz a yellow card but a VAR check for a potential red card delayed the resumption of the game.
Havertz had met Burn with his elbow in a nasty challenge, raising his arms and bringing them down to give himself a boost in his leap to meet the ball.
But his elbow came down on Burn’s head and in slow motion, the challenge looked even worse.
A long VAR check decided that there was no serious foul play and that Havertz’s yellow did not need to be upgraded to a red.
“If that had been Dan Burn on Havertz there would have been no question,” said Bryan Robson on punditry duty for the match.
“But the perception is of a gentle bias towards the ‘skill’ players, that negates their equal ability to be nasty bastards.”
Havertz then went on to score a late winner for his side, after Newcastle had dominated most of the match.
It was the first of two big VAR calls which went the way of the Blues during their Sunday afternoon kick-off.
In the second half, VAR opted against overturning the referee to give Newcastle a penalty after Trevoh Chalobah pulled Jacob Murphy’s shirt and dragged him to the ground in the Chelsea box.
🚨 "It doesn't look great."
VAR controversy as Kai Havertz catches Dan Burn with an elbow. Just a yellow for the Chelsea man…
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