Howard Webb reveals reason for decision on Haaland goal vs Man Utd, gives verdict on Foden red card | OneFootball

Pro Ref chief Howard Webb has revealed why Erling Haaland’s winning goal in Manchester City’s 1-0 win against Manchester United wrongly stood.

There were two controversial incidents as 10-man Man City beat Man Utd 1-0 at Old Trafford on Sunday afternoon.

Phil Foden was shown a straight red card by referee Michael Oliver after kicking out at Bruno Fernandes, who started the clash by kicking the Man City player while he was down.

VAR decided against intervening for this incident, but they played a role in Man City’s winning goal, which should have been ruled out for offside.

Haaland found the net with a fine finish and was offside, but Enzo Fernandez was in an offside position and should have been adjudged to have affected play.

Now, Webb, who is the chief refereeing officer for Pro Ref, has admitted that he was “really disappointed” with how the VAR officials handled the Haaland goal.

“I was really disappointed with this outcome. We all are,” Webb said on ‘Match Officials Mic’d Up’.

“None more so than the officials themselves. They take a lot of personal pride in what they do and they’re obviously hurting now, having fallen short in this situation.

“They’ll not be officiating again until after the international break.”

On why the match officials got the Haaland goal wrong, Webb claimed they had “tunnel vision” on the striker.

He continued: “The VAR gets super-focused on Haaland.  He establishes he’s onside, he thinks that’s a good goal.

“He doesn’t truly evaluate the full impact of Fernandez’s position. He has a look to see if he touches the ball, because then that relates to potentially knocking it to Haaland, who goes on to score.

“In that moment, he gets tunnel vision. 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.

“What looks like a really clear subjective offside, because Fernandez doesn’t touch the ball but still clearly impacts [the play but] doesn’t get identified, and it’s really disappointing.

“This goal should’ve been disallowed. And highly unfortunately, it wasn’t, and we’ll review it, reflect upon it, and try to take the learning forward to prevent this unusual type of error from happening again.”

Howard Webb ‘agrees’ with Phil Foden red card decision

On the Foden red card, Webb has explained why he agreed with the decision.

“I agree with the red card for Phil Foden,” Webb added.

“He kicks out with force into the upper body of Bruno Fernandes.

“Now, when you look at the footage, there is that petulant kick by Bruno Fernandes into the backside of Foden. It is more petulant than violent.

“To be violent conduct, it has to have excessive force or brutality. When you look at that, particularly in full speed, it doesn’t have those elements. So therefore, this would be a yellow card offence.”