City’s derby win has been overshadowed by a rare admission from the top of English refereeing. Howard Webb has confirmed that Erling Haaland’s crucial goal should have been ruled out — not because Haaland himself strayed offside, but because Enzo Fernandez was interfering with play from an offside position when the ball broke to him.
This has forced Howard Webb, football’s chief refereeing officer, into an unusually candid breakdown of exactly where the process broke down.
Why the offside call triggered outrage
Within minutes of the final whistle, debate raged over who had actually been in an offside position when Haaland turned home the decisive goal. Some reports suggested Haaland himself was the offender. Howard Webb has now put that claim to rest.
Speaking on Premier League’s Mic’d Up show, Webb explained that the initial flashpoint had nothing to do with Fernandez at all. The on-field officials were checking Haaland’s position, and the VAR review confirmed he was comfortably inside the letter of the law.
“The on-field decision was not against Fernandez, it was against Haaland. When the VAR starts their check, they see that Haaland is actually onside by three centimetres.”
Three centimetres is the crux of the controversy. Haaland was legally onside. The goal should still have been chalked off, but for an entirely different reason that the officiating team never got round to examining.
Supporters wanting the fuller picture of how the offside line was drawn can find more detail in our earlier piece on Erling Haaland derby goal ignites offside rule debate after VAR error.
The confusion between the two players is understandable given how the check unfolded in real time, but it is also precisely what allowed the actual error to slip through unnoticed until after the match.
How officials missed Fernandez
Once VAR Matt Donohue and assistant VAR Blake Antrobus had established that Haaland was onside, the review effectively stopped there. Neither official went on to assess whether Fernandez, standing in an offside position of his own, had any bearing on the passage of play that led to the goal.
Howard Webb described this as a case of the VAR becoming fixated on a single question rather than working through the full sequence.
“The VAR gets super focused on Haaland. He establishes he is onside but when he runs it through the full APP [full attacking possession phase], he doesn’t truly evaluate the full impact of Fernandez.”
Webb went further, framing the mistake as one of concentration rather than incompetence, and one that should have been caught by the wider team in the video hub.
“In that moment, he gets tunnel vision but it is down to the rest of his team to pull him out of that tunnel but unfortunately, that did not happen on this occasion. This goal should have been disallowed.”
According to Pro Ref, this amounted to an error of judgement, specifically because Fernandez’s role from an offside position was never evaluated once Haaland’s own position had been cleared. It is a distinction City fans will want to remember: the failure was not in reading the offside line incorrectly, but in failing to ask the right question at all.
Webb explains the procedural failure
PGMOL’s response has been to lay the process bare rather than let speculation fill the gap. Howard Webb confirmed that the referees’ body contacted Manchester United directly once the error had been identified, sharing both the audio from the VAR hub and the footage under review.
“We have reached out to Manchester United and acknowledged the error, as we do when these things happen and they do not happen often. We want to ensure we are transparent and open.”
That transparency extended to a full playback of the incident for the club, giving Manchester United officials the same view of the conversation between the on-field referee, the VAR and the assistant VAR that led to the goal standing.
“We have played the audio and footage to the club to let them know what happened. We will review the situation to understand what elements of the process fell down in this situation which meant we didn’t get to the right outcome.”
Webb’s language is careful here — this is presented as a review of process, not a promise of specific changes to how VAR checks are structured. For a fuller account of Webb’s explanation, including the exact sequencing of the check, see Howard Webb’s explanation of the VAR process reported by the Independent.
What is clear is that the failure sits with the mechanics of the check itself, not with any deliberate bias toward either club. Webb’s account describes a team of officials who asked one correct question and then stopped, rather than pushing through the full sequence of events that preceded the goal.
What next for Premier League officiating?
The consequences have already landed for those involved. Both Matt Donohue and Blake Antrobus have been stood down from officiating duties until after the international break, a period that gives Pro Ref time to review the incident away from the immediate pressure of a matchday schedule.
Howard Webb was explicit about how seriously the officials themselves have taken the mistake.
“I was really disappointed with this outcome, we all were. None more than the officials. They take personal pride in what they do and they are hurting now after falling short in this situation. They will not be officiating until after the international break.”
For City, the goal stands, the points are banked, and the win is not in question. But the episode leaves a broader conversation about VAR accountability, one that Webb has at least engaged with directly rather than deflecting. Whether the review he has promised produces any changes to how future checks are run remains to be seen, and nothing has been formally announced beyond the standing down of the two officials involved.
