The Premier League has acknowledged that a VAR review should have disallowed Erling Haaland’s goal in the Manchester derby because teammate Enzo Fernandez was offside and interfered with play. The league’s official Match Officials Mic’d Up explanation says the review correctly checked Haaland’s position but failed to assess the full attacking phase.
Manchester City won 1-0 at Old Trafford on Sunday, a result recorded on the Premier League’s official match page. Haaland was initially flagged offside, but the goal was awarded after semi-automated offside technology showed that he was onside. The later explanation focused on why that finding did not settle the incident.
The first check answered only half the question
The official account says Haaland was onside by three centimetres when the ball was played, with Manchester United defender Patrick Dorgu keeping him on. That was the factual part of the review, but the attacking phase contained another offside question involving Fernandez.
Fernandez did not touch the ball. The Premier League’s explanation says that was not enough to end the assessment because an offside player can still be penalised for interfering with an opponent. Fernandez moved towards the ball as it came across, got close to it and affected the decisions of nearby United defender Lisandro Martinez and goalkeeper Senne Lammens, according to the league’s account.
That distinction is the centre of the error. Establishing that Haaland was onside did not establish that the goal was legal. The VAR team still had to evaluate whether Fernandez’s position and movement affected the defence before Haaland eventually shot. The official explanation says the check did not complete that wider assessment.
Webb describes a process failure
Howard Webb, Pro Ref’s chief refereeing officer, said the officials became too focused on Haaland’s offside position after the technology supplied the three-centimetre result. In the explanation, Webb described the problem as a form of tunnel vision: once the first part of the review appeared to support the goal, the remaining elements of the attacking phase were not examined with the same care.
The league’s account says the VAR checked whether Fernandez touched the ball, because that could have affected Haaland directly, but did not fully consider the other ways an offside player can interfere. The result was a review that answered whether Haaland was offside while failing to answer whether Fernandez’s actions affected the opponents.
Webb said Pro Ref had acknowledged the mistake to Manchester United. He also said the audio and footage had been shown to the club and that the organisation would review which parts of the process failed. The officials involved will not officiate again until after the international break, according to the same Premier League explanation.
Why the clarification matters
This is not a new match result or a fresh assessment of Haaland’s position. It is an explanation of how a goal that passed one offside test still contained a separate interference issue. The official match page continues to record Manchester United 0-1 Manchester City, while the league’s refereeing statement identifies the goal decision as an error.
For readers, the useful lesson is to separate the confirmed event from the wider story built around it. Our guide to five key signals before kickoff uses the same approach by separating team news, conditions and tactical fit instead of treating one visible detail as the whole match picture.
The method also echoes our evaluation of the United States’ home advantage, which distinguishes a real structural factor from the conclusions people draw from a single result. In this case, the confirmed factor is simple: Haaland was onside, but the review did not properly assess Fernandez’s interference.
Pro Ref’s review will now examine how that gap occurred. Until the process review is complete, the Premier League’s clearest finding is that the goal should not have stood.
