Jayden Bogle should have been sent off. That is the view of most who watched the replays — but the officials at Elland Road disagreed, and Mathys Tel paid the price. The Leeds right-back escaped even a yellow card for the challenge that forced the Tottenham forward off injured, and the four-minute VAR review that followed has become the talking point of the Premier League weekend.
Leeds went on to win the game 1-0 through Noah Okafor's late strike, but the result was almost a footnote. The afternoon at Elland Road will be remembered for the tackle, the wait, and the decision that left Tottenham furious — and for a manager who refused to join the chorus.
The challenge that changed the game
The incident came just after the half-hour mark, with the game still goalless. Bogle rushed into a challenge near the halfway line as Tel shifted the ball away, and his boot came down on the back of the Frenchman's ankle. Tel stayed down in clear discomfort while referee John Brooks waved play on without even a booking.
VAR Tony Harrington intervened, and the check dragged on for four minutes while Tel received treatment on the turf. In the end, Brooks was not even sent to the pitchside monitor. The Premier League's Match Centre account later explained the reasoning: "The referee's call of no red card to Bogle for the challenge on Tel was checked and confirmed by VAR. VAR: 'I'm confirming the on-field decision of no red card. There's a lack of speed going into the challenge and he's stepping into the tackle. Confirming a reckless challenge'."
The reaction was immediate and brutal. Former Premier League referee Mike Dean, working as a pundit, called it "100 per cent a red" — a verdict that matched the mood of the Tottenham bench and the travelling support. Sky Sports recorded the challenge as the defining moment of the first half, and social media filled with replays of Bogle's boot landing on Tel's Achilles.
Tel forced off as Spurs lose their spark
Tel tried to play on, but the damage was done. The 21-year-old, who had narrowly missed out on a call-up to the France squad ahead of the international break, was withdrawn two minutes before half-time and replaced by Dominic Solanke. He had been Tottenham's brightest outlet in a flat first half, and his departure left Spurs blunt for the rest of the afternoon.
It was not the only decision to go against the visitors. Leeds also had a penalty appeal waved away when Mateus Fernandes appeared to handle the ball, with Brooks and VAR again deciding there was no offence. By the time Okafor struck the winner in the 79th minute, Tottenham's afternoon had unravelled — a three-match winning run ended, and a winger who had been central to their recent form was in the treatment room.
De Zerbi's own afternoon ended in the book. The Italian was cautioned for his protests over a second-half yellow card for Pedro Porro — a decision he called an "incredible yellow card" — and the booking means he will serve a one-game touchline ban when Spurs return after the international break against Ipswich Town on November 21.
De Zerbi refuses to blame the officials
What made the post-match reaction so striking was what De Zerbi did not say. Where most managers would have used the Bogle decision as a shield, the Tottenham head coach pointed the finger at his own team instead.
"I have a big confidence in the referee, nothing changes if he goes to watch the clip or not, I think," he told TNT Sports. "There was the VAR and if they didn't take the right decision, I don't know, but we have confidence. We have to keep the eyes on the performance and where we can improve."
He was harsher on his players than on the officials. "I'm sorry for the result but first of all, I'm sorry for the performance in the second half — we didn't play like a top team, we played without the right spirit, the right character, the right physicality in the duels," he said. It was an honest assessment: Spurs were second best for most of the second half, and even with eleven men they rarely looked like scoring.
Reuters noted that De Zerbi had not even watched the tackle back after the game, saying only that he had not seen it at the time. That restraint — from a manager who was booked during the game for his frustration — may be the most surprising part of the whole afternoon.
Farke defends his "butterfly"
Daniel Farke, meanwhile, was delighted with his side's first league win since September, and he defended Bogle with the kind of description only he could produce. The Leeds manager called the right-back his "butterfly" and insisted the challenge was never deliberate.
"I didn't watch it back. I just know that Jayden Bogle never, out of any bad intention, does the foul," Farke said. It is a defence that will not convince Tottenham supporters, but Farke has a point about the player: Bogle is not a serial offender, and the "reckless" verdict from VAR at least matches the intent, even if the punishment does not match the outcome.
The win lifts Leeds above Spurs into eighth, with Tottenham dropping to tenth. For Farke, it is proof that Elland Road is a hard place to win again. For De Zerbi, the international break now arrives with a different kind of problem — not just a defeat, but a star winger injured and a touchline ban to serve.
So what: the debate VAR cannot settle
The Bogle decision exposes the gap at the heart of VAR's red-card reviews. The law asks whether a challenge endangers an opponent's safety; the replay showed a boot landing on an ankle with enough force to end a player's afternoon. Yet the officials settled on "reckless" rather than "serious foul play", and the explanation — a lack of speed into the challenge — will satisfy nobody who watched Tel limp off.
That is the problem. VAR was introduced to correct clear and obvious errors, but the Bogle call was not corrected, and the reasoning published afterwards reads like a justification rather than an explanation. When a former referee calls it "100 per cent a red" and the officials on the day see only a reckless foul, the system has a consistency problem, not a technology problem.
For Tottenham, the consequences are practical. Tel's injury will be assessed over the international break, and with Xavi Simons already sidelined, De Zerbi's attacking options are thinning at exactly the wrong time. The Spurs head coach was right to focus on his team's performance rather than the officials — but he will also know that his side deserved better from the officials than they got. The returning Bentancur could not change the game from the bench, and Spurs now have two weeks to stew on a defeat that felt avoidable.
Beyond the Final Whistle: De Zerbi deserves credit for refusing to hide behind the officials, but his restraint should not let VAR off the hook. A challenge that ends a player's game with a boot on the ankle is a red card in almost every interpretation of the law — and when the officials need four minutes to decide it is not, the process is broken, not the decision. Tottenham were poor in the second half and deserved to lose on the balance of play, but they also deserved a fair contest. Leeds earned their win; the officials did not earn theirs. Should Bogle have seen red, or was "reckless" the right call? Have your say in the comments.
