Erling Haaland’s derby-winning strike at Old Trafford has done more than settle another edition of the Manchester derby.
It has reignited one of English football’s most persistent gripes: whether VAR actually understands the offside law it was built to enforce. Pro Ref, the body formerly known as PGMOL, has now admitted the officials got it wrong.
Derby drama: Haaland’s winner sparks controversy
City’s derby victory should have been a straightforward story of Haaland doing what Haaland does. Instead, the goal that separated the two sides became the main talking point, as replays showed Enzo Fernandez standing in an offside position close to the build-up. The goal stood, City celebrated, and United were left furious that the flag never went up.
Gary Neville, never short of an opinion on officiating, put the confusion into words that resonated with supporters on both sides of Manchester. “I’m going to need the offside rule explained to me,” he said, capturing a frustration that has followed VAR since its introduction.
His comment spread quickly, less because it was combative and more because it summed up the uncertainty so many fans feel when a marginal offside call is waved away without explanation.
For City fans, the goal was simply the latest example of Haaland’s ruthless finishing instinct in a fixture that rarely goes to plan. Supporters who want the full context of his derby heroics can revisit Erling Haaland’s reaction following the derby win. But the wider football world was more interested in why an active offside position had not triggered an on-field review.
Pro Ref concedes ‘error of judgement’
Days after the final whistle, Pro Ref issued a statement that confirmed what United’s coaching staff and neutral pundits had suspected: the officials had misjudged Fernandez’s role in the passage of play.
The body went further than a routine acknowledgement, directly contacting Manchester United to explain the reasoning behind the mistake, according to a report by The Independent on Pro Ref’s admission.
The statement itself was unusually detailed for a governing body that has often been criticised for its lack of transparency. “It was established that Enzo Fernandez did not play the ball and therefore that makes any offside offence subjective; however, on this occasion, the VAR did not recognise the likely impact of his position and should have recommended an on-field review,” Pro Ref said.
That wording matters. It does not suggest Haaland’s goal was illegitimate, nor does it retroactively change the result. City’s win stands, and nothing in Pro Ref’s statement implies otherwise. What it does confirm is a breakdown in process: the video assistant referee had the information required to flag a subjective offside offence but failed to send the on-field referee to the pitchside monitor. In a competition that has staked its credibility on precision, that is a significant admission.
For City, the episode adds another data point to a season already shaping up as one of fine margins. Haaland’s underlying numbers continue to tell their own story regardless of the officiating debate, and those wanting the full breakdown can consult Haaland’s Premier League statistical record.
Breaking down Premier League VAR trends and error metrics
The derby incident does not exist in isolation. According to BBC Sport, citing the Premier League’s Key Match Incidents panel, there were 25 VAR errors recorded last season, up from 18 the season before. That is a rise of nearly forty per cent in a single campaign, and it lands the technology squarely back in the debate over whether it is actually improving decision-making or simply adding another layer where human error can occur.
The same KMI data, as reported by BBC Sport, shows that Arsenal and Chelsea were the biggest beneficiaries of those errors last season, gaining from seven and eight mistakes respectively. Six of the recorded errors involved a failure to issue a red card when the panel judged one was warranted, a category of mistake that can swing a match far more decisively than a marginal offside call.
Those figures give useful context to City’s derby controversy without excusing it. Every club in the Premier League has been affected by inconsistent VAR interventions at some point, and the frustration is not confined to Manchester. Mikel Arteta was visibly furious with officials after Arsenal’s win at Sunderland, where the home side were awarded a penalty he felt should never have stood. It is a reminder that VAR grievances cut across the entire division, not just one fixture or one club’s supporters.
Meanwhile, Manchester United’s on-pitch struggles under Michael Carrick have added extra scrutiny to any decision that goes against them. United have collected just four points from four games since Carrick took charge, a run that has left little margin for error either tactically or in terms of decisions that go against them. That context has sharpened the reaction to Pro Ref’s admission, even though the statement addresses process rather than pointing to any bias.
Semi-automated systems and rules: Where refs go from here
The Premier League introduced semi-automated offside technology in 2025, a system designed to strip out exactly the kind of subjective judgement calls that undermined the derby decision. The technology uses a network of tracking cameras and limb-detection data to generate an offside line far faster and, in theory, far more accurately than a human eye scanning a broadcast replay.
Yet the Fernandez situation illustrates the limits of automation in football’s grey areas. Because Fernandez did not play the ball, his offside position became a matter of subjective interpretation about impact and interference rather than a simple line call that semi-automated technology can resolve on its own. That distinction is precisely where Pro Ref admitted its VAR official fell short, failing to recommend the on-field review that would have let the referee make the final judgement in person.
Elsewhere, officiating protocols continue to evolve. VAR rules have been updated to allow second yellow cards to be reviewed, closing off another category of decision that previously sat outside the video assistant’s remit. Taken together with the semi-automated offside rollout, it shows a governing body attempting to tighten the margins for error, even as the KMI panel’s own figures suggest those margins are currently moving in the wrong direction.
For City supporters, the derby win remains exactly that: a win, delivered by their number nine in the fixture that matters most. The broader question now is whether Pro Ref’s candour over this single incident translates into fewer subjective errors as the season progresses, particularly with a demanding run of fixtures still to come.
Those tracking how the campaign unfolds can follow the Man City fixtures and results schedule as City look to build on a result that, whatever the officiating debate, still counts as three points in the bag.
