Former Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher has said that Tottenham weren’t awarded a penalty against Arsenal due to there being ‘minimal contact’ on Dejan Kulusevski.

Despite performing well in the opening exchanges of the match against the Gunners, Spurs found themselves 1-0 down following a Pierre-Emile Hojberg own goal after 15 minutes. Ange Postecoglou’s men thought that they had levelled, but Micky Van de Ven’s strike was ruled out for a minimal offside.

Things got even more frustrating for Spurs a few minutes later. As they were attacking, Kulusevski was clipped by Leandro Trossard in the box, leading to shouts for a penalty, there was also a second shout for a trip on James Maddison, but replays show that Declan Rice got the ball.

The claims were waved away by referee Michael Oliver with VAR not overturning the decision. Much to Tottenham’s frustration, Arsenal then went down to the other end of the pitch and scored their second goal.

Speaking on Sky Sports News’ Ref watch on Monday, Gallagher has given his verdict on the decision. The former referee has agreed with the on field decision and explained why he feels the decision to not award a penalty was right.

“I think there is a little bit of a nick on him, there’s no doubt about that, but then he clips his own heel, for me, minimal contact and not a penalty. The second one is definitely not a penalty because Rice gets the ball first.”

Former Premier League defender Stephen Warnock was not in agreement with Gallagher. “The big thing to me is that whether it’s minimal contact or not, there’s contact and Kulusevski is in a position where he is trying to get beyond Trossard who’s got himself in a bad situation because he’s got the wrong side of Kulusevski and he’s trying to get back,” he said.

“I don’t like it because this is very difficult to get out of the way of. I’m just listening to the wording there where you said he clips his own heel, he doesn’t, Trossard clips his heel which then makes him cross his legs.

“So what you’re trying to achieve is, when you’re going across, if I take that step there and you clip my heel, my heel now goes across which makes me go down. If I take that step and you go to kick me and I dodge it my step goes forward naturally.

“So by interfering with my stride pattern and knocking me, you have now knocked my leg from that position to there where I can only kick my own leg which makes me go down. But I don’t go down unless you touch me, so that has to be a penalty.”

Tottenham eventually fell to a 3-2 defeat in the game. The team almost pulled off a memorable comeback after scoring twice in the second half after being 3-0 down at half time.

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