Richard Keys makes baffling claim after Newcastle were awarded penalty yesterday

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It’s great to see there’s no love lost between Newcastle United and Richard Keys after the former Sky Sports host posted a bizarre tweet following the decision to award Newcastle’s second penalty.

Newcastle needed two penalties to score against Leeds yesterday which is full credit to Leeds’ stoic defence but also a damning indictment of their gameplan which brought back memories of Leeds of old when their tactic was to kick anything that moved.

While the first penalty awarded to Newcastle was for a clattering foul on Alexander Isak, the second was a bit more subtle on first viewing. Junior Firpo (who was lucky to be on the pitch anyway) was eventually adjudged to have handled the ball after a pitch-side VAR check.

Richard Keys somehow failed to see the contact the ball made with Firpo’s hand

Firpo’s hand was so high in the air it came down with snow on it, it had no right being where it was so when the ball clearly makes contact with his fingers it’s a nailed-on penalty. The VAR check was more to see if Isak had made sufficient contact on Firpo that could have been a foul in itself thus rendering the handball decision moot.

The replays very, very clearly show Firpo’s fingers bend backwards as the ball travels through his hand towards Isak, but Richard Keys obviously had different footage to literally everybody else in the world as he tweeted: “That decision could relegate Leeds. How can they give that? There’s no conclusive proof Junior handles it – in fact I’m not sure he did – the ball didn’t change direction at all. It’s an incredible call for me.”

There was a genuine reason to question the decision if he needed one

“No conclusive proof”? What on Earth was he watching? How far back did Firpo’s fingers have to bend for it to be conclusive?

Look, we all know Richard Keys and Newcastle don’t have the best relationship, but this is just desperate from Keys.

Even the most die-hard Leeds fan will agree that it hit his hand. They might claim that Isak’s push should have been enough to give a free-kick to Leeds, and that’s fine – I’m sure if the roles were reversed that’s how we’d see it, but it absolutely, unequivocally clear that ball struck his fingers.