VAR Awards Penalty For Manchester City In Crazy End To First Half

Spurs vs Manchester City is a fixture full of recent VAR controversy and we saw it yet again in the closing stages of the first half at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium.

Sergio Aguero went down under the challenge of Serge Aurier but to begin with Mike Dean waved away the Argentine's protests.

City kept the ball for a good period of time but when the ball made its way back to Ederson, Dean, with VAR in his ear, went back and gave a penalty for the Ivorian's foul.

Pep Guardiola's side continued their abysmal record from 12 yards when the normally reliable Ilkay Gundogan was denied by Hugo Lloris, who got away with moving off his line.

Yet the crazy sequence wasn't done there. On the rebound, Sterling went down when Lloris went to smother him and there was immediately another penalty shout for VAR to look at.

Much to Spurs' delight, the original decision remained this time and no penalty was given.

To finish off an utterly mental end to the opening 45 minutes, Dean dished out a couple of bookings to Toby Alderweireld and Oleksandr Zinchenko.

Earlier on in the half, VAR was referred to after Sterling badly mistimed a challenge on England colleague Dele All - escaping with just a yellow card in a decision that seriously rattled Jose Mourinho when he watched it on replay.