‘Not a leg-breaker’ - Newcastle United man Fabian Schar’s tackle on Wolves’ Pedro Neto reviewed by ex-ref

The tackle by Fabian Schar on Pedro Neto earned the Newcastle man a yellow card but there were some who felt the punishment should have been more severe.

Ruben Neves said Neto almost had his leg broken by the challenge but Gallagher dismissed those claims in his assessment on Sky Sports News’ Ref Watch.

He said: “I’ve read so much about this. I don’t think it’s the ‘leg-breaking’ tackle I’ve read about. It’s not a nice tackle but I don’t think it was a red card.”

‘Perfect use of VAR’

Wolves had also had a goal ruled out when Raul Jimenez finished off a quick counter-attack.

However, that was struck off after Ryan Fraser was adjudged to have been pushed in the back by Pedro Neto in the build-up.

“Perfect use of VAR,” Gallagher said in his assessment. “VAR alerted the referee (Peter Bankes) and said you need to go to the screen and look at this.

“It’s a foul. They’ve got the decision absolutely right.”

And while those two decisions went against Wolves, Gallagher felt they might have got away with one after Newcastle claims that they should have been awarded a penalty when Sean Longstaff looked to have had his shirt pulled by Matheus Nunes.

VAR, however, chose not to review the incident as Bruno Lage’s side went to take a 1-0 lead through Ruben Neves.

“All I can think is that they believe he hasn’t impacted on the forward but for me, it’s a penalty,” said Gallagher.

“You watch how long he got his shirt for... it has to be a penalty.”

Ruben Neves had been fuming with some of the decisions after the match.

‘It’s really dangerous’

“At the end, it’s details, it’s details when Pedro Neto almost broke his leg and the referee doesn’t go to the screen,” he told Sky Sports.

“It’s one detail, another is we scored a second goal, the referee goes to the screen.

“(There were) a lot of meetings before the season starts, every time, then you see our players almost breaking his leg in that tackle, referee doesn’t go to the screen.

“We asked why so many meetings because everyone sees it on the TV, I’ve always watched and it’s unbelievable, almost broke his leg.

“It’s really dangerous, they keep playing with eleven men until the end and that’s one of the details.”