Even now Peter Walton in the Times disagrees and says decision was correct. So hardly a clear cut “mistake”

I got vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals.

Referees, their decisions, have always been sport. Always will , as we will never avoid the contentious in football decisions. Even with VAR that remains the case as VAR highlights the contentious decision. It doesn’t stop it being contentious.
The worry for me is that the bleating of certain managers and high profile ex players, appears now to be intimidating referees and the whole refereeing system, simply by appealing to a broader and broader base of opinion.
No matter what the decision, no matter how many people look at the situation , it remains contentious in many cases if not all. Why we should need the PGMOL to look at this I don’t know. Unless we are moving to what VAR started, and games will be refereed totally from a room miles from the ground. No matter the contentious would remain, only the Shearers, would have no one to bleat to.

I agree Mitchells hand on Willock was minimal touch. Players are putting hands on all the time, it has been ignored by refs for years now. And this year in particular ,due to pressure from clubs ,managers, players, and others referees are allowing more and more of this if not considered extreme. The clear fact was Willock flattened the goalkeeper and you really can not do that, the strength of any push was difficult to assess ,flattening the goalkeeper wasn’t. The rules used to be fairly simple, applied simply . Now all those involved tend to want it all ways, that’s until what they wanted smacks them in the face.

I start to wonder if the much hyped atmosphere that is St James park nowadays is being allowed to influence how this particular decision is being viewed even by such as the PGMOL.

I would have been molten with anger, as a long-standing fan of our club, if the goal had been awarded.

If the goal had been allowed to stand I suspect many of us would have concluded that the decision was based on the fact that the incident took place at St James' Park, favouring the Home team and their 50,000 supporters.
Jolly well done to the VAR.

Edited by Willo (05 Sep 2022 10.05am)

I've looked back at the incident a number of times and it is clear that Willock would have wiped out Guaita whether or not Mitchell had made contact with him (and I've been to Specsavers!)