PGMOL chief explains controversial Manchester City call as Liverpool register formal complaint

Head of PGMOL Howard Webb has backed the officials following controversy around the disallowed Virgil Van Dijk goal late in the first half.

Manchester City emerged convincing victors in their last fixture before the forthcoming international break as strikes from Erling Haaland, Nico Gonzalez and Jeremy Doku secured an emphatic yet controversial 3-0 win for the Blues at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday.

Not only was VAR involved in a penalty missed by Haaland early on but Andrew Robertson was deemed to be interfering with City goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma after Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk headed in from a corner shortly after Haaland’s opener.

VAR official Michael Oliver reviewed the incident but saw no clear and obvious error and supported the on-field offside call against Robertson, with Liverpool since approaching PGMOL chief Howard Webb to express the club’s dismay over the controversial decision.

Webb spoke on the Match Officials Mic’d Up show and explained that despite there being split opinion and discourse following the contentious decision, there were valid reasons for van Dijk’s goal to be disallowed.

“Interfering with an opponent where the offside position player doesn’t play the ball and the officials have to make a judgement whether the actions of that player impact an opponent are some of the most subjective decisions that we have to make,” said Webb, as quoted by BBC Sport.

“Therefore, it’s no surprise that some people believe this goal should have stood – so I think it’s important that we look at the facts of what actually happened in this situation.

“We know the corner comes in and the ball reaches van Dijk. As the ball’s coming across the penalty area, the Manchester City players move out; they leave Robertson in that offside position in the heart of the six-yard box. 

“When van Dijk heads the ball forward, that’s the moment when we have to make an offside judgement about Robertson and about what he’s doing there.

“We know he (Robertson) doesn’t touch the ball but what does he do? Well, as the ball moves towards him, three yards out from goal, right in the middle of the six-yard box, he makes that clear action to duck below the ball.

“The ball goes just over his head and the ball finds the goal in the half of the six-yard box where he is. Then, the officials have to make a judgement – did that clear action impact Donnarumma, the goalkeeper, and his ability to save the ball? And that’s where the subjectivity comes into play.

“Obviously that’s the conclusion they drew on that. They looked at that position, they looked at that action – so close to the goalkeeper – and they formed that opinion.

“I know that’s not a view held by everybody, but I think it’s not unreasonable to understand why they would form that conclusion. 

“The player (Robertson) is so close to the goalkeeper, the ball’s coming right towards him and he has to duck to get out of the way of the ball – and they form the conclusion that that impacts Donnarumma’s ability just to dive towards the ball and make that save.

“And then, of course, once they’ve made that on-field decision, the job of the VAR is to look at that and decide, was the outcome of offside clearly and obviously wrong? 

“Only Donnarumma truly knows if he was impacted by this, and, of course, we have to look at the factual evidence, and when we see that factual evidence of that position of the player ducking below the ball, so close to the goalkeeper, the VAR determines that the outcome of offside is not clearly and obviously wrong, and they stay out of it.”

Refereeing decisions are almost certain to always spark a conflict of opinions but Howard Webb seems to think the officials were perfectly justified in chalking off what would have been Virgil van Dijk’s equaliser.

The controversial decision, in the end, had little bearing on the result as Manchester City heavily dominated Liverpool either side of the incident and put the reigning champions to the sword in a one-sided clash of titans at the Etihad Stadium.