Brighton fans demand replay with Tottenham after PGMOL apology; Gary Lineker, Danny Murphy and Alan Shearer weigh in on VAR 'incompetence'

Goals from Son Heung-min and Harry Kane earned Spurs a crucial win in their battle to make the top four – damaging the Seagulls’ own aspirations of reaching next season’s Champions League.

However, the football world is in uproar after Roberto De Zerbi’s side had three huge penalty shouts turned down – most notably when Pierre-Emile Højbjerg tripped Kaoru Mitoma in the box around the 70th minute mark, when the score was 1-1.

Speaking to BBC Match of the Day, Brighton captain Lewis Dunk – who scored Albion’s equaliser – said: “I don’t see how it’s not a penalty. It’s a clear foul in the box. There’s no point having VAR in the game if you are not going to make big decisions like that. That decision changes everything. I just don’t understand it.”

Pundit Alan Shearer said: “It was an awful decision. This is a clear and obvious error, it’s a howler. Stuart Attwell has looked straight down the barrel. It should be a clear penalty. De Zerbi, I’m sure will be getting an apology in the next 48 hours but it’s not good enough. It’s not acceptable.”

If that wasn’t bad enough, in the opening stages of the game, Clément Lenglet appeared to use his hand to clear the ball inside the area and, after Spurs took a late 2-1 lead, the French defender clearly pulled Lewis Dunk’s shirt as he challenged for a header.

"I think that’s a penalty as well,” Shearer said. “Lenglet has got hold of Dunk, two hands.”

Host Gary Lineker asked: “Do you actually have to remove the shirt [for it to be a penalty]?”

On the Lenglet handball, Shearer said: “They got away with that one as well.”

Danny Murphy said: “There is no apology, statement or explanation that is going to make those Brighton players feel [better]. It’s beyond belief those decisions weren’t given. It’s hard to find any logical reasons why. As far as I’m concerned, it’s complete incompetence.”

This is without mentioning the two goals Mitoma and Danny Welbeck harshly had disallowed for handball after VAR chose to intervene on those occasions.

Shearer said he had to give the officials ‘the benefit of the doubt’ but admitted he does not ‘like to see the goals disallowed’.

But Shearer, the Premier League’s all-time leading goal scorer, said the decision to rule out the goals were ‘very harsh’. On the Welbeck ‘goal’, he said: “I’m not certain it hits his [Alexis Mac Allister’s] hand. It hits his hip there.”

On Sunday morning, PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited) chief Howard Webb has been in touch with Brighton to admit the foul on Mitoma should have been a penalty and a mistake was made. It is the third time Brighton have received official apologies from the refereeing body this season.

Here’s how the football world has reacted:

- Mark Saggers, from Talk TV, said: “It won’t happen but there is a case for @OfficialBHAFC to request the game v @SpursOfficial is replayed. Integrity is so important and at the very least an investigation into why so many decisions were wrong. Ironically officials hide behind VAR. we need to know.”

- @MikeKing14_ wrote: “A genuinely wild situation, this. Quite possibly the first and only time I have seen a replay of a match be a viable solution (they won’t). Interested to see how Webb / PGMOL manage to inevitably worm their way out of this one.”

- The official Specsavers page asked: “Just the one?”

- @schmdttt asked: “So what’s the punishment? Mistakes need to be punished.”

- @ChrisofBelper said: “Two apologies now. Why apologise? is it to rub it in even more. Does three apologies mean a guaranteed place in Europe next season?