John Brooks excluded from Arsenal vs Man City VAR service after Brighton error

Video assistant referee John Brooks has been withdrawn from tonight’s Merseyside derby and Wednesday’s crucial Premier League title clash between Arsenal and Manchester City.

Brooks was on VAR duty for Saturday’s match between Brighton and Crystal Palace, where the Seagulls were wrongly disallowed a goal after the wrong player was used when drawing the lines to check for offside.

Brooks will be replaced by Andre Marriner for tonight’s match at Anfield and David Coote for Wednesday’s match at the Emirates.

Brooks’ error was one of two highest-profile errors this weekend, with Brentford’s equalizer in their draw against Arsenal wrongly allowed to stand after VAR Lee Mason failed to get it right to correctly check the offside against Christian Norgaard during the preparation.

Referee chief Howard Webb has called all officials to an emergency meeting tomorrow after Professional Game Match Officials Limited issued a statement confirming the two botched calls were the result of “human error”.

“PGMOL can confirm that its head of refereeing, Howard Webb, has contacted Arsenal and Brighton & Hove Albion to acknowledge and explain significant errors in the VAR process,” a PGMOL statement said.

“Both incidents, due to human error and linked to the analysis of offside situations, are being thoroughly examined by PGMOL.”