Just when City supporters thought Sunday’s derby could finally be filed away under ‘job done’, somebody has floated the possibility of playing the whole thing again.
City beat United 1-0 at Old Trafford despite playing most of the game with 10 men following Phil Foden’s red card, but the fallout from Erling Haaland’s controversial winner is showing little sign of disappearing.
Former PGMOL chief Keith Hackett has now gone one step further by raising the possibility of United demanding a replay. Yes, a replay.
Keith Hackett raises extraordinary Man City possibility
The controversy, of course, surrounds City’s winning goal. Haaland was initially flagged offside before VAR overturned that decision, but Enzo Fernandez was himself in an offside position and attempted to play the ball as the move developed.
Pro Ref subsequently admitted there had been an “error of judgement” in allowing the goal to stand.
Hackett, an outspoken critic of refereeing standards in the years since leaving his senior role, pointed Football Insider towards a case in Belgium involving Genk and Anderlecht, where a match was eventually ordered to be replayed following a refereeing error involving VAR.
“Do Manchester United have a right to demand that the game is replayed?” he asked. In any practical sense, the answer is surely no.
There is no suggestion United have actually requested a replay and no Premier League match has previously been replayed simply because the officials got a decision wrong. Refereeing mistakes, including serious VAR errors, are an unfortunate part of football.
The precedent would be extraordinary. If an acknowledged mistake became sufficient grounds for replaying a game, clubs could point towards wrongly awarded penalties, incorrectly disallowed goals, mistaken red cards and any number of VAR errors that may have affected a result. Where would it end?
Hackett is entitled to raise the question and the Belgian case makes for an interesting comparison, but there is an enormous difference between discussing whether something could theoretically happen and there being any realistic prospect of it happening here.
There isn’t. So, barring something genuinely unprecedented, City still have their three points, and United still have their derby defeat.
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