There has been clarification from the Premier League regarding a ‘controversial’ moment on Monday night, during the match between Leeds United and Newcastle United.
Leeds United won a corner in the opening minute of the match.
The ball came in and was cleared towards the edge of the penalty area and as Matias Fernandez-Pardo was running out of the box the ball bounced awkwardly and accidentally struck his arm as he was exiting the 18 yard box.
The ‘controversy’ coming when the Leeds United players and fans were pleading for a hopeful penalty.
Even in these days of ridiculous penalty awards this looked pretty feeble.
Clearly a total accident as Matias Fernandez-Pardo clearly didn’t do this on purpose, it wasn’t in a dangerous goalscoring position and Newcastle United didn’t even get any advantage from this.
The Premier League have clarified via X why the decision was made: ‘The referee’s call of no penalty for a potential handball offence by Matias Fernandez-Pardo was checked and confirmed by VAR.’ The on the pitch referee Michael Salisbury when the incident happened having said to the VAR John Brooks: “For me, it’s bouncing, it’s not intentional”, with then the VAR John Brooks replying: “Confirming the on-field decision to play on – the ball just bounces up and inadvertently hits the arm of the defender”.
For those of us who had the misfortune of watching this Leeds v Newcastle match on Sky Sports with the sound not muted, we had the added pain of having to listen to the two total clowns doing the commentary. They were ridiculously biased towards Leeds and the way they went on, I could quite imagine them having punched the air in delight when each of the four goals went in for the hosts. As for that clearly no penalty in the opening minute or two, the commentators kept mentioning it throughout the commentary, even when Leeds went 4-0 up I am pretty sure they were still repeating how it should have been a spot-kick.
Leeds 4 Newcastle 1 – Tuesday 14 September 2026 8pm
Match Stats
Goals:
Toure 90
Leeds United:
Lewis Miley OG 32, Bogle 34, Calvert-Lewin 45+1, Okafor 59
Possession was Newcastle 49% Leeds 51%
Total shots were Newcastle 7 Leeds 15
Shots on target were Newcastle 5 Leeds 6
Corners were Newcastle 5 Leeds 5
Touches in the opposition box Newcastle 18 Leeds 30
Newcastle team v Leeds:
Hornicek, Dedic (Livramento 58), Thiaw, Botman, Hall, Lewis Miley (Bamba 80), Gonzalez (Steur 19), Murphy (Toure 57), Wissa, Barnes, Fernandez-Pardo (Willock 57)
Unused subs:
Pope, Schar, Ramsey, Mason Miley