Gary Neville has criticised Nottingham Forest's decision to write to the Premier League and referees body PGMOL asking for an explanation over Ivan Toney's controversial freekick goal for Brentford on Saturday, but blamed Arsenal and Liverpool for setting the precedent.
Toney marked his return to the pitch for the first time in eight-months against Forest as he pulled Brentford back level with a curling set-piece effort from the edge of the box.
However, replays showed Toney had moved the ball from the mark laid out by the referee, placing it down to the right of the original spot and wiping the vanishing spray already on the pitch around the ball in its new position.
Forest players justifiably fumed that the goal shouldn't have been allowed to stand, but the wall they had set up to defend the free-kick also gave space for Toney to shoot into. However, protocol set by IFAB states that VAR can can only intervene for ‘serious missed incidents’ in four match-changing situations - goals, penalty decisions, direct red-card incidents and mistaken identity.
Brentford went on to win the match 3-2 while Forest remain four-points above the relegation zone and the club have now written to the relevant bodies asking for an explanation as to whether Toney's actions amounted to foul play.
Neville commented on Forest's decision to ask for clarification, stating on X as cited by Sports Central: 'Clubs writing to the PGMOL is embarrassing! Liverpool and Arsenal started it and set the precedent of this nonsense. 'The refs should be doing better and are under enormous pressure at the moment. It's in the clubs interests to work with them to make them improve. 'This public posturing is unnecessary. Speak to them and email them to gain clarification in private but they don't have to 'announce'…'.
Arsenal and Liverpool have both wrote to the Premier League and PGMOL this season for contentious decisions in matches that have caused outrage among each club's ranks.
Both club's have received apologies this season, with Forest becoming the latest team to ask for more details after Toney's goal was awarded.
Nuno rejected Toney's claim after the game and added: 'The law is clear - every situation that leads to a goal must be checked. It's not even a matter of inches, it's almost a yard.'
Toney's goal was his first since his return from an eight-month gambling ban and helped Thomas Frank's men leapfrog their opponents in the Premier League table.
Explaining his decision to move the ball outside of its position that had been laid out by the referee, Toney said after Saturday's match: ‘Yeah I saw the gap. 'Sometimes you have a gap either way and I bent the ball around the wall and was so happy to see it go in.'
.
