Video assistant referees at Stockley Park failed to call referee Michael Oliver for a pitchside review before allowing Erling Haaland's winning goal for Manchester City to stand in Sunday's Manchester derby, even though Enzo Fernandez appeared to interfere with play from an offside position in the build-up, according to Daily Mail columnist Oliver Holt.
Oliver, the on-field official at Old Trafford, had originally flagged the goal for offside. The decision was overturned by VAR without Oliver being shown a replay on the pitchside monitor, meaning the first he knew of the reversal was when it was relayed to him as what Holt called a fait accompli.
How the VAR review broke down
Holt wrote that VAR became so focused on establishing whether Haaland himself was offside, which he was not, that it failed to consider the separate, subjective question of whether Fernandez's actions had interfered with play. Fernandez flung himself at the ball from an offside position during the move, drawing Lisandro Martinez towards him and leaving Haaland unmarked.
ProRef, the body responsible for match officials, issued what Holt described as a lengthy mea culpa on Sunday evening, appearing to accept that Oliver had not been brought into the review process. Holt said Oliver would surely have ruled out the goal had he been given the chance to view a replay and conduct an on-field review himself.
Pressure on Carrick and the title race
Manchester City won the derby with the disputed goal standing, and Holt described City as the better team on the day. He said Michael Carrick, the Manchester United manager, is under increased pressure because of the result, and suggested the two extra points City gained could prove critical in the outcome of this season's Premier League title race.
"It was good old-fashioned human error," Holt wrote. "We don't need VAR for human error. We are more than capable of that ourselves. VAR was supposed to eradicate human error. But it hasn't. It has added another layer of human error." He added that on Sunday, "the incompetence of VAR was allowed to override the excellence and experience of the match official."
Calls to scrap VAR
VAR was introduced in the Premier League at the start of the 2019-20 season with the aim of eliminating clear and obvious errors. Holt argued it has instead spread blame across officials and stripped fans of the spontaneity of celebrating goals without hesitation.
He called for the Premier League to abandon the system altogether, noting that Sweden's top flight, the Allsvenskan, operates without it. Holt said Premier League clubs have the power to vote to scrap VAR but lack, in his words, "vision or conviction or loyalty to supporters" to do so.
Match of the Day reaction
Holt also wrote about the BBC's Match of the Day coverage of the derby, saying the programme offered a "welcome shot in the arm" after weeks in which he had felt close to becoming one of the growing number of viewers turning away from it. Presenter Mark Chapman and pundits Wayne Rooney and Danny Murphy discussed the derby's controversies on Sunday night's broadcast, which Holt said had thrown up plenty for them to get into.
