I really don’t like the “having no material impact on the play” line and I’m quite surprised that it even exists as a legitimate reason not to give something. In fact I’d go as far as saying that a referee shouldn’t even have an option not to give a penalty in that situation, keeping the rules and the outcomes “black & white” protects clubs like ours against similar situations vs established Premier League opposition in the future and stops referees being able to give bollocks reasoning for not making a decision. There’s no benefit to adding nuance to such a simple & obvious decision making process.
Their player was trying to run freely, he was stopped from doing so intentionally by Ayew, whether he would’ve headed it or not is completely irrelevant, in fact even if he wasn’t running towards the ball it’s still a foul, just mark the lad properly and stop being lazy.
Referees weighing things up on probability based on an opinion completely personal to themselves and their own point of view can get in the bin for me.
Got a bit carried away with the long post but I’ve got a feeling something similar will bite us in the arse sooner or later.