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Howard Webb has admitted that Nottingham Forest should have been awarded a penalty against Everton.

Forest issued a statement after their 2-0 defeat by Everton to complain about the rejection of three penalty appeals.

Webb went through the decisions from the Nottingham Forest vs Everton game
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Webb went through the decisions from the Nottingham Forest vs Everton game

They said they had 'warned' referees' body Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) that the VAR, Stuart Attwell, was a supporter of relegation rivals Luton, but the PGMOL did not act.

In the latest edition of Match Officials Mic'd Up, Webb went through the decisions from that match.

Webb said: "It did, mainly centered around three penalty decisions. Nottingham Forest thought that three situations should have led to the award of penalty kicks for them. We're going to talk about the third of those in a moment.

"The first two we felt were really subjective calls. The first one involving some contact from Ashley Young on Gio Reyna. There was contact. The referee saw that but didn't feel it was impactful enough to penalise. We've set quite a high threshold for penalising contact all over the field really, but also in the penalty area. It's what the game has asked us to do.

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"Not every single contact is a foul and this was one where there was quite minimal contact, consistent with other situations that we've waved away this season. The VAR quite rightly checked that one.

"The second one was a handball penalty situation. Ashley Young involved again. The ball hits his arm. He's moving as he tries to close a shot down from short distance and the referee deemed that the arm was in a natural position and the VAR check completed that one as well - quite understandably, in this subjective zone of handball. So we thought that both of those situations were in line with our expectations."

Nottingham Forest should have got a penalty for this incident
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Nottingham Forest should have got a penalty for this incident

In the second half, Forest pleaded for a penalty for the third time when Hudson-Odoi was felled by Young inside the Everton box but the referee waved play-on.

On this incident, Webb said: "I understand why we would have preferred an intervention on this situation. The referee waves away the penalty appeal.

"The VAR looks at it and asks himself the question, 'Was the non-award clearly and obviously wrong?' and came to the conclusion it wasn't. You hear him describing two players tussling for the ball. He doesn't see a clear action by Young that he considers to be worthy of intervention, one that reaches the threshold of being very clear.

"But we would have preferred an intervention for the referee to go to the screen to make a judgement for himself in this situation and probably would have come out with a different outcome if that would've happened."

You can hear the audio from the incidents on the Premier League website here.

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