Two officials stood down
Howard Webb did not try to defend it. The goal should not have counted.
Speaking on “Match Officials: Mic’d Up”, which aired Tuesday, the chief refereeing officer at Pro Ref walked through Erling Haaland’s goal at Old Trafford and explained how VAR Matt Donohue and assistant VAR Blake Antrobus arrived at the wrong answer on Sunday. Both have been stood down for this weekend’s Premier League fixtures and will not officiate again until after the international break.
“I was really disappointed with this outcome. We all are. None more so than the officials themselves,” Webb said. “They take a lot of personal pride in what they do and they’re obviously hurting now, having fallen short in this situation.”
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Right question, wrong player
The check started correctly. Donohue and Antrobus established that Haaland was onside. What they missed was Enzo Fernandez, standing in an offside position and throwing himself forward to try to head in Josko Gvardiol’s cross.
“In that moment, he gets tunnel vision,” Webb said of Donohue. “He gets focused on Haaland, and it’s down to the rest of his team to pull him out of that tunnel, and unfortunately, that didn’t happen on this occasion.”
The assistant VAR exists for exactly that job, Webb said, and the process failed. Pro Ref has since contacted Manchester United, played the club the audio and the footage and acknowledged the mistake. “This goal should have been disallowed,” Webb said. “And highly unfortunately, it wasn’t.”
Foden, Fernandes and the rest of it
Michael Oliver’s red card for Phil Foden, shown for a kick at Bruno Fernandes, was correct in Webb’s view. City went on to win the derby with ten men.
The counter-argument, that Fernandes should have walked too for kicking Foden while the City midfielder was on the ground, did not survive the review. “It is more petulant than violent,” Webb said. “To be violent conduct, it has to have excessive force or brutality, and when you look at that, particularly in full speed, it doesn’t have those elements.” A yellow card offence, in his reading, and no mechanism for the VAR to recommend one once Oliver had already dealt with the red card incident on the field.
Michael Carrick called the standard of officiating worrying after the match. Wayne Rooney said he was baffled. Neither of them gets the result back.
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