Former top referee rules on this controversial Newcastle v Wolves incident

In partnership with

The Mag

·15 September 2025

Former top referee rules on this controversial Newcastle v Wolves incident

Former top referee Keith Hackett has been talking about this controversial moment during Saturday afternoon’s game at St James’ Park.

Eddie Howe’s side eventually winning 1-0 against Wolves.

OneFootball Videos

A first victory of the season for Newcastle United.

However, when it ends up such a narrow winning margin, you can look back at key incidents that influenced the match. Especially those that could have potentially helped deny United all three points.

Such as this incident for example…

It actually happened not that long before the glorious moment when Nick Woltemade scored the winning goal on his debut.

Shortly before that headed winner, we saw Dan Burn play an absolute beauty of a diagonal ball over the top of the Wolves defence for Harvey Barnes to run onto.

This saw the Newcastle winger and the Wolves defender Yerson Mosquera as the two players competing for the ball just outside the penalty area.

Mosquera was deceived by the bounce of the ball and it went behind him, Harvey Barnes having judged that bounce so well and running onto the ball as it fell perfectly for him to run onto on the edge of the box. The keeper having stayed on his line and Barnes with a glorious chance to open the scoring.

Only, Harvey Barnes never got that chance.

The Wolves defender having realised he has misjudged the bounce, instead went for the man. Mosquera cynically took out Barnes with an elbow to the head, no attempt to play the ball.

Watching from my seat not far away, I though this was a classic case of the referee Chris Kavanagh bottling an absolute easy decision, because he knows the VAR is there these days to save him from any embarrassing mistakes. Play stopped shortly after and Kavanagh delayed the restart due to the VAR check, only for it literally to be over inside ten seconds and play restart. Everybody around me simply couldn’t believe it, the most obvious of cynical fouls and a red card as last man. Outside the box not by much but obviously no penalty and Wolves should have been down to ten men.

Watching TV replays later, this simply confirmed what I had seen at the time, it was bad enough Kavanagh not giving it BUT how could the VAR believe there was nothing wrong with this, it defies belief.

So what does the former top referee Keith Hackett make of that moment?

Keith Hackett, the ex-FIFA referee and former PGMOL who has given this perfect analysis on what we all saw, via his Twitter/X account:

“This is a clear red card offence.

“Clear foul and fulfilled DOGSO (‘Denying an Obvious Goal-scoring Opportunity’) so red card.

“Easy decision a clear red card offence. PGMOL trying out a new VAR Timothy Wood.

“No Premier League experience.

“Just get people who can do the job.”

This Timothy Wood, his first time as a VAR in the Premier League, I think clearly he bottled it and didn’t want to be seen querying an experienced (and useless!!!) referee such as Chris Kavanagh.

In the end it thankfully didn’t matter but I can’t believe how the media have totally ignored this incident. If it was the likes of Liverpool or Arsenal then we would never hear the last of it. Eddie Howe is one of the few good guys who never looks to make excuses, very restrained even when terrible decisions such as this go against NUFC.

On Match of The Day for example, after showing our match highlights they didn’t even talk about the appalling decision not to send off the Wolves defender.

Newcastle 1 Wolves 0 – Saturday 13 September 2025 3pm

Goals:

Newcastle United:

Woltemade 29

Wolves:

Possession was Newcastle 57% Wolves 43%

Total shots were Newcastle 16 Wolves 8

Shots on target were Newcastle 4 Wolves 3

Corners were Newcastle 10 Wolves 4

Touches in the box Newcastle 29 Wolves 23

Newcastle team v Wolves:

Pope, Trippier, Schar, Burn, Livramento, Tonali, Bruno, Joelinton (Willock 65), Barnes (Elanga 80), Woltemade (Osula 65), Murphy (Botman 95)