Carlos Corberan accepts Huddersfield Town's fate as VAR decisions prove decisive in Championship play-off final
The Spaniard is a strong advocate of VAR and welcomed the decision to use if for the first time in the Championship season for the play-off final against Nottingham Forest.
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Hide AdBut it seemed to work against his side with Harry Toffolo booked for diving when Jack Colback clipped his ankle, and Sheffield United loanee Max Lowe kicking through the calf of Lewis O'Brien in the penalty area.
Both decisions were given Forest's way on the field by Jon Moss, refereeing for the last time as a professional, and backed up by VAR Paul Tierney.
Huddersfield lost a game of few chances 1-0, with Corberan insisting the game paned our more or less as he had hoped.
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Hide Ad"We didn't create the chances we wanted to create because we didn't get the cross in or play the (right) last pass and in the moment we had a big opportunity to create chance, the referee understood they were not fouls," said Corberan.
"I haven't watched them yet but the players who were fouled were saying if they hadn't been fouled, they would have finished the opportunities.
"You have the VAR and the referee and if they understand there is no foul, I cannot say anything.
"The only thing I can do is to accept (it).
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Hide Ad"When you only have one referee it's complicated but when you have the support of the VAR, the possibility to make a fair decision increases. So if they think they weren't penalties, maybe they weren't penalties.
"I have had a season without VAR and there are times where I don't know the process well. I don't know if the referee needs to ask for a review, I don't know if the VAR can do something when they see but if you have VAR and a referee and they understand it was no penalty, I can only accept that it was not a penalty."
VAR's can intervene to tell the referee to overturn certain key decisions such as penalty appeals, or ask him to review it on the pitchside monitor if there has been a clear and obvious error, but clearly Tierney did not think that was the case.
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Hide AdForest had two thirds of the ball in the first half although over the course of the whole 90 minutes they only had two shots on target. Their goal came when Levi Colwill put through his own net in the 43rd minute.
Corberan said it had always been his plan to keep it cagey and press on in the second half, as they did without converting it into any shots on target themselves.
"The game was really, really, really balanced," he insisted, "really equal.
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Hide Ad"We played the two halves in different ways. In the first one we tried to be more solid and aggressive in defence because any time you try to be aggressive against Nottingham Forest they can attack you in the spaces between the defenders and the keeper and they have very quick players to exploit these situations.
"For me it was good concentration in the way the game required at the beginning.
"We had some moments when we recovered the ball but we didn't finish our counter-attacks in the way we wanted.
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Hide Ad"I can't tell you the goal was a clear chance but unfortunately it finished in the goal after a challenge between Colwill and (Ryan) Yates and it was clear in the second half we needed to play better and go in a different way to win the game
"The team was more aggressive, defending high up the pitch and attacking more than counter-attacking.
"We were dominating the game well enough and we avoided any opportunities for Nottingham Forest. They are a very good team on the counter-attack but they didn't have any chances because the team had a good mix between patience and aggression.
"But it's true at the same time we didn't create the chances we wanted to."
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