A contentious Manchester United goal was permitted after a VAR check and an on-pitch review, despite audible frustration among the Old Trafford crowd.<\/p>\n
The sequence began 10 minutes into the second half when Diogo Dalot delivered a cross that unsettled the Nottingham Forest defence. Bryan Mbeumo attempted to control the ball, raised his knee and diverted the delivery upwards, where it became trapped between his hip and right arm. Mbeumo’s follow-up shot was blocked and Matheus Cunha tucked in the rebound.<\/p>\n
VAR Matthew Donohue spent almost two minutes reviewing every angle of the footage while United’s players refrained from celebrating before sending Michael Salisbury to the pitchside monitor. The referee then took another 90 seconds on the touchline before upholding his original decision and awarding the goal.<\/p>\n
As Salisbury attempted to explain to the Old Trafford crowd, Mbeumo\u2019s “handball offense is accidental, therefore the final decision is goal.” That interpretation aligns with Law 12 in the FA Handbook, which stresses that “not every touch of a player\u2019s hand\/arm with the ball is an offense.” A 2021 change to the laws means players are no longer penalized for an accidental handball that leads to a teammate scoring a goal or creating a goalscoring chance.<\/p>\n
The application of that rule was decisive. Had Mbeumo himself scored from the sequence, the goal would have been disallowed, but because Cunha converted the rebound, Manchester United were allowed to go 2\u20131 up.<\/p>\n
Gary Neville, watching Salisbury’s explanation as part of the U.K. broadcast on Sky Sports, implored the official to get on with it. Once the decision was confirmed, Neville reacted strongly. “That\u2019s an absolute shocker is every single way,” he howled. “Manchester United celebrate, Cunha\u2019s doing a samba in front of the Stretford End, but honestly, that is ridiculous.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Referee upheld Matheus Cunha’s goal after VAR review; handball ruled accidental under Law 12. FA rule<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13864,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1083,298,969],"tags":[260],"class_list":["post-13865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-man-utd","category-nottingham-forest","category-premier-league","tag-bryan-mbeumo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}