Referee stood down after VAR error to return as fourth official for Aston Villa vs Arsenal

Referee John Brooks will return as fourth official for Arsenal’s trip to face Aston Villa just a week after being stood down for a high-profile VAR error.

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The official was due to be in the hotseat at Stockley Park for Monday night’s Merseyside derby between Liverpool and Everton as well as Wednesday’s top-of-the-table tussle between Arsenal and Manchester City.

However, he was stood down and replaced by Andre Marriner and David Coote respectively after making a mammoth error in Brighton’s 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace on Saturday.

Pervis Estupinan was denied an opening goal at Selhurst Park after he was adjudged to be offside by Brooks – who was on VAR duty – but it then emerged that he had drawn the offside line in the wrong place.

Brooks drew the offside line from the position of Palace centre-back James Tomkins, though Marc Guehi was actually the deepest defender and was playing Estupinan onside.

But Brooks will be back in Premier League action this coming weekend as fourth official for Aston Villa’s match against Arsenal on Saturday lunchtime.

Simon Hooper – whose only other match featuring Arsenal was the 5-0 thumping of Nottingham Forest – will referee the contest while Stuart Atwell is the VAR.

Lee Mason, meanwhile, will not be involved in this weekend’s Premier League action after his mistake in Arsenal’s 1-1 draw against Brentford, having failed to rule out the west London side’s equaliser.

Mason did not spot that midfielder Christian Norgaard was offside in the build-up to Ivan Toney’s equaliser despite spending three minutes observing the incident, having been focused on whether Ethan Pinnock was offside and blocking Oleksandr Zinchenko.

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