Nottingham Forest 1-1 Brentford: Nicolas Dominguez rescues a point for the hosts
Amid the many storylines that ran through this match, VAR stood above them all yet again.
The video technology is there to eliminate controversy yet it has simply increased it, with this time Brentford feeling they had a raw deal.
On another day, the Bees might have had two penalties. One in first-half stoppage time when the ball clipped Forest midfielder Nicolas Dominguez’s hand as he jumped with arms outstretched, and a second soon after the break for a challenge by goalkeeper Matt Turner on Yoane Wissa. Dominguez was not punished because his hand was deemed to be close enough to his body when he leapt, while Turner’s lunge at Wissa was checked and cleared.
Though both were close calls, any manager on the wrong end of them will be grumpy. The controversy at Tottenham on Saturday, when Liverpool were denied a goal even though Luis Diaz was onside when he scored, meant Darren England was replaced by Michael Oliver in the VAR chair. It is important to say that there was no howler here, yet it is far from easy to work out which decisions deserve to be reversed and which do not.
Forest have complained bitterly about officials this term yet even though they were reduced to 10 men when Moussa Niakhate was given a second booking early in the second half, they had the rub of the green here. Christian Norgaard put the Bees in front seconds after the red card, only for Dominguez to equalise with his first goal for Forest.
With Steve Cooper searching for only his second win in 10 matches against Brentford boss Thomas Frank, the Forest boss surprisingly left Morgan Gibbs-White on the bench and moved record signing Ibrahim Sangare further forward.
With Anthony Elanga on one side and Callum Hudson-Odoi on the other, Forest’s plan was
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