Manchester City had a goal ruled out at Anfield after a VAR review and the match ended with Erling Haaland sent off. The sequence began with Liverpool\u2019s half empty apart from Dominik Szoboszlai. Cherki picked up the ball in the centre circle and slid it forward with something between a shot and a pass into the stride of an onrushing Erling Haaland.<\/p>\n
While the pair were about 20 yards outside the penalty area, Liverpool\u2019s retreating midfielder pulled Haaland back. City\u2019s No. 9 stayed on his feet long enough to get a fistful of Szoboszlai\u2019s red shirt. Both ended up on the turf as the ball trickled over the line to Cherki. The referee, Craig Pawson, was then sent to the touchline monitor after a word from VAR John Brooks.<\/p>\n
Pawson explained the outcome to the crowd: “After review, there is a careless foul by Erling Haaland, that pulls the shirt of Dominic Szoboszlai. Prior to that, Szoboszlai commits a holding offence that denies an obvious goal scoring opportunity. The final decision is a direct free kick to Manchester City and a red card.” The official played advantage after Szoboszlai\u2019s initial offence, but Haaland\u2019s subsequent foul took place before the ball crossed the line and therefore ended the period of advantage. Because Szoboszlai was the last man and Haaland had an open goal, the referee judged that an obvious goalscoring opportunity had been denied, resulting in a straight red and a one-match ban.<\/p>\n
The decision to disallow what would have been a long-range strike prompted sharp criticism. Gary Neville labelled the referee a \u201ckilljoy\u201d on Sky Sports commentary while other viewers expressed anger on social media. One reaction read: “Football belongs to players and fans, not to soulless, joyless pedants with no feel for the game. Senseless decision, an affront to football. Ruling out that third goal is one of the most ridiculous moments of the season, totally against the spirit of the game. The law\u2019s an ass,…”<\/p>\n
Others put responsibility on Haaland rather than VAR. One comment said: “If the ref had felt that Dom S had fouled Haaland in real time he’d surely have just let play develop and then, ultimately, play advantage? Advantage being a goal. VAR again, total rubbish. GET RID” Another noted: “People are saying VAR was wrong and that they should just \u201cplay advantage\u201d. They do that and it\u2019s no goal and a foul by Haaland; freekick to Liverpool for the tug on Szo. By Haaland making that tug back, he gave VAR no choice. Don\u2019t understand why folks can\u2019t comprehend that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
VAR review wiped out Man City’s third goal; Haaland sent off for denying Szoboszlai’s chance Anfield<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6646,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,238,172],"tags":[1162],"class_list":["post-6647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-manchester-city","category-epl","tag-analytics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6647","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=6647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}