'I'm very happy it's not a goal' - Joe Cole admits bias in Chelsea vs Fulham controversy 'for football's sake'
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Credit: TNT Sports
Oliver Walton
Sat 30 August 2025 14:45, UK
Joe Cole offered his openly-biased verdict on the controversial decision to disallow Josh King’s goal against Chelsea while live on TNT Sports.
Chelsea and Fulham faced off in a Premier League West London derby on Saturday (30 August) at Stamford Bridge, and the first-half was not without controversy as the visitors thought they had taken the lead.
Young forward Josh King raced through on goal in the 21st minute and coolly dispatched past Robert Sanchez for his first ever goal in senior football, but his joy was short-lived as referee Rob Jones was told to review the build-up by VAR.
Jones duly looked at a coming together between Rodrigo Muniz and Trevoh Chalobah, and then deemed the former to have committed a careless challenge on his opponent shortly before King’s strike, so chalked the opener off.
Fulham boss Marco Silva was fuming with the decision, and his woes were compounded in the 10th minute of eight in added-time at the end of the first period as Joao Pedro nodded Chelsea in front from a corner, before a further VAR review in the second half resulted in Enzo Fernandez scoring a penalty for a 2-0 win.
Credit: Hasan Karim, Breaking Media
Muniz’s challenge was pretty innocuous, despite England international Chalobah going down very heavily, and very few Chelsea players actually protested for a foul as King broke away towards their goalkeeper.
The 18-year-old will feel hard done by to have seen his maiden Cottagers strike ruled out, and Blues hero Joe Cole shared the sentiments that it was a poor decision by Jones and the VAR live on TNT Sports (30 August, 12:56pm), saying: “I’m right in line with it at the half-way line.
First of all, Chelsea are very lucky, I’m very happy it’s not a goal.
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“But for football’s sake it’s not a foul.
He’s got his body in, yes there’s contact… to sanitise football like that.
“A Fulham 18-year-old’s run away from the half-way line and scored his first goal in the Premier League, to take it off him for that, it’s not a tickling contest, I don’t like this nit-picking.
It was just two professional footballers going in for a challenge and leaving a bit of contact.
“I’m happy it’s not a goal from Chelsea’s perspective, but I don’t like it in football when you’re chalking off goals for that, it makes it too sanitised for me.”
Football Insider verdict
It is only the third weekend of the new Premier League campaign, yet VAR seem to have been involved in controversy on numerous occasions already.
Former FIFA referee Keith Hackett told Football Insider on 15 August that VAR need to change their communication methods after Bournemouth defender Marcos Senesi’s handball went unpunished against Liverpool.
More contentious decisions followed last week as Hackett also told Football Insider that Chris Kavanagh should not have given Man United a penalty in their game against Fulham as Calvin Bassey and Luke Shaw both committed fouls at the same time.
Now another weekend and another decision that looks to be wrong, and VAR are coming under fire once again as they are meant to provide clarity and help the right decision to be reached, yet even Chelsea legends like Cole are against giving fouls for challenges as soft as Muniz’s.