Lampard fumes at VAR after hair-pull call leaves Coventry beaten 3-1 at Everton

Frank Lampard left Goodison Park frustrated after Coventry City were beaten 3-1 by Everton in the EFL Championship, with the Sky Blues manager arguing that two penalty appeals and a goal-disallowance call all went against his side on the same night.

The most heated flashpoint came in the first half when James Tarkowski appeared to pull the hair of Coventry’s Caleb Yirenkyi as the pair contested a cross. No penalty was awarded, and VAR declined to intervene. A separate incident involving Vitalii Mykolenko’s tackle on Taiwo Awoniyi was also reviewed, with officials ruling the challenge had occurred marginally outside the penalty area. The second of Thierno Barry’s two goals was additionally checked for handball but was allowed to stand.

“Tarky pulls on Caleb’s hair,” said Lampard, who managed Everton between 2022 and 2023. “I think that’s a hard area to be in. What is a hair pull and what is not? He’s decided it is but it’s not enough.”

On the Mykolenko challenge, Lampard was equally unconvinced by the outcome: “For me, on the line of the box is a penalty. You have to give the foul in real time anyway but the ref let it go. I thought it was a penalty by the time Myko’s knee is in the back of Taiwo’s knee.”

Lampard acknowledged Everton’s victory was deserved on the night but maintained the cumulative weight of the decisions was significant. “Nothing went for us tonight. Well played Everton, they won the game and we knew it would be a tough match, but if three decisions are that big — if one or two go our way they would clearly change the game.”

Rules around hair-pulling were amended ahead of this season, with the offence downgraded from an automatic red card in most circumstances. Lampard said he was only informed during a post-match interview that the incident had been classified as a hair-pull but deemed insufficient for a penalty. “If they say it’s a hair pull, it’s a hair pull,” he said, adding that the fourth official had offered no detail on the sideline during the match.

Yann Gboho scored his first goal for Coventry, but Barry’s brace — lifting his season tally to 10 — and a Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall strike nine minutes from time sealed the result for Everton. David Moyes, the Everton manager, disagreed with Lampard’s assessment of all three VAR decisions.