Top journalist Henry Winter has stated it was ‘ridiculous’ for Wolves captain Max Kilman to essentially get punished for not reacting to Carlos Vinicius’ headbutt on him.
Wanderers are feeling very aggrieved today after last night’s match at Craven Cottage, with VAR costing Gary O’Neil’s side once again.
As many as four big decisions went against Wolves, who had shown good character to come back twice in the game.
In the end, Wolves simply didn’t have enough to overcome Fulham and the officials, and O’Neil did extremely well not to fly off the handle in his interview after the 3-2 loss.
One of the decisions VAR failed to reach the right decision on was in the 88th minute when Vinicius headbutted Max Kilman, and journalist Winter has made a great point about this incident…
Henry Winter reacts to Max Kilman and Carlos Vinicius tangle
With the game delicately balanced at 2-2, there was a tangle between Kilman and Vinicius in the 88th minute.
The Fulham striker went down softly and then rose to his feet, thrusting his head into Kilman’s face. This was not going nose-to-nose, it was a clear movement of the head.
For some bizarre reason, referee Michael Salisbury did not instantly produce a red card and even worse, VAR checked the incident and took no further action.
Kilman stood his ground, and journalist Winter has made a point many fans will agree with. He said on X, formerly Twitter: “Max Kilman was brought up to play the game with honesty. He could have made something of Carlos Vinicius raising his head into his face. Kilman stayed on his feet, ref failed to act and Vinicius escaped. So #Wolves were punished for their captain’s honesty. Ridiculous. #FULWOL.”
Afterwards, O’Neil said that referee Salisbury had told him that it was a ‘soft headbutt’.
With this situation, VAR is now encouraging players to make the absolute most of things so that correct decisions are reached.
A genuine joke of a decision
This was one of the very worst decisions of the night.
It was an absolutely crystal clear headbutt by Vinicius and £50,000-a-week star Kilman did him a massive favour by standing his ground and not reacting.
Winter makes a very good point – Wolves have been punished for Kilman being honest and having integrity.
It just cannot be good for the sport that players have to writhe around in agony just to ensure that correct decisions are reached.
We are truly in a terrible place with VAR that a player can remain on a football pitch after clearly headbutting an opponent just because the person being headbutted didn’t go down.