Chelsea's Thiago Silva dodges red card for cynical moment vs Crystal Palace

Thiago Silva went under the VAR microscope during Chelsea’s trip to Crystal Palace on Saturday afternoon.

The Blues made the infinitely tricky away journey to Selhurst Park for Graham Potter’s first Premier League game in charge and it’s fair to say that they didn’t have everything their own way in south London.

Despite Patrick Vieira’s Eagles not actually having been as stellar this season as most people seem to think, they nevertheless flexed their muscles against their capital neighbours in the first-half.

A seventh-minute strike from Odsonne Édouard to silence his doubters was enough to make Chelsea realise that they were going to have to dig deep if they wanted to take any points back to Stamford Bridge.

And at one point, their task looked almost impossible as the Palace fans and countless viewers watching on from home thought that Thiago Silva should have been sent off.

The legendary Brazilian centre-back had stopped Jordan Ayew from racing through on goal with what proved to be an incredibly cynical, obvious and deliberate handball.

The feeling was, understandably, that Silva had used unfair means to prevent what could have been a critical goalscoring opportunity for the home side.

However, despite VAR wading into the debate by looking at Silva’s intervention in granular detail, the decision was taken that he should be awarded a yellow card as opposed to a red.

But try telling that to thousands of incensed onlookers with even Palace’s chairman, Steve Parish, venting on Twitter: “Honestly what is the point of #var we chop and change every week what it does what it thinks. #Var must surely think that’s a red but not a ‘clear’ error! Even if it’s not a #dogso which it is He handballs it twice deliberately, one we