ONE TOUCH SUMMARY
- Manchester City beat Manchester United 1-0 after Erling Haaland's winning goal was allowed to stand.
- VAR Matt Donohue failed to spot Enzo Fernandez was three yards offside in the build-up.
- Howard Webb's push for faster VAR decisions reduced delays from 46 to 36 seconds per game.
ONE TOUCH INSIGHT
The Premier League got exactly what it asked for. Matt Donohue's panicked "let's go, let's go" is the sound of a video official sprinting through a review because the season's stated principle — more efficient application of VAR — has been drilled into him harder than accuracy.
The catastrophic detail isn't the missed offside. It's where the process broke. Donohue froze the replay on Josko Gvardiol's touch and went straight into semi-automated offside, never assessing the full passage from the cross to Erling Haaland's header. So Enzo Fernandez's three yards never entered the picture. Blake Antrobus, the AVAR whose entire job is to supply the checks and balances, offered "no, yeah" one second before "check complete". The support VAR at Stockley Park watched it unfold and sat on his hands.
Howard Webb can point to delays falling from 46 seconds a game to 36. The failure to give Arsenal a penalty at Aston Villa suggests the same haste doing the same damage.
Donohue's next Premier League appointment tells you whether Webb reads this as one official's lapse or a system built to go too fast.
WHY IT MATTERS
Only two VAR errors this season, both arguably caused by reviews cleared too quickly, which raises doubts about whether the Premier League's push for speed has traded accuracy for efficiency in its biggest games.
Erling Haaland
ST
Norway
Strengths
- ✓Scored the winning goal in the Manchester derby from a cross into the box
- ✓Provides a constant penalty-box presence for City's crossing threat
- ✓Finished the decisive attacking phase that the VAR review focused on
- ⚠Will Haaland's derby winner be remembered for the VAR error rather than the finish?
- ⚠Can City keep relying on crosses into Haaland to settle tight derbies?
TACTICAL FIT
City's winner came from Josko Gvardiol's cross into the box for Haaland, and the review's failure to trace the full attacking phase from that cross to his header is central to the error.
THE DEBATE
Has VAR's obsession with speed made the Premier League less accurate?
Figure caption,
Refereeing decisions were 'baffling' - Rooney
By
Football issues correspondent
- "Quick, quick, quick, quick! Go, go, go, go, go!"
The words of video assistant referee Matt Donohue as he rushed through the review to award Erling Haaland's winning goal in the Manchester derby.
No doubt Donohue was simply trying to be as efficient as possible, but it led to one of the most catastrophic VAR errors the Premier League has seen.
Donohue and his assistant VAR, Blake Antrobus, inexplicably failed to notice that Enzo Fernandez was three yards offside before he tried to head the ball.
The goal was given, and Manchester City beat Manchester United 1-0.
Refereeing has always been a goldfish bowl of scrutiny and pressure, heightened by the introduction of VAR.
The Premier League made a "more efficient application of VAR to reduce delays" one of its football principles for the season.
Has the game tried to prioritise speed over accuracy?
Rushed and chaotic rather than calm and collected
Supporters have grown tired of long delays while the video officials review incidents
The urgency in Donohue's voice was all too apparent.
"Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go!"
It was a panicked exchange between the VAR and the replay operator. Not calm, collected and methodical. Rushed and chaotic. The opposite of how a video official should operate.
Officials hear repeatedly - from fans, pundits, radio phone-ins and newspaper columns - that VAR has to be quicker. That delays are not acceptable.
In the Premier League stakeholders' survey - which includes managers, coaches and supporters - the key theme for improvements to VAR was the speed of decisions.
This has to create pressure - but it is no excuse for such an error.
City boss Enzo Maresca had some sympathy speaking on Wednesday, though he was of course the beneficiary of the gaffe.
"To make a decision in 10, 20 seconds is not easy for them," said Maresca.
"Sometimes they make mistakes. I make mistakes, players make mistakes. It's part of our job."
Referees' chief Howard Webb has taken the desire for quicker reviews on board, but it is still a balancing act.
There has been a positive impact, as far as the stats go.
VAR delays - including the referee making an announcement to the crowd - have been reduced, from an average of 46 seconds per game to 36 seconds season-on-season.
Yet the only other VAR mistake, the failure to award a penalty to Arsenal at Aston Villa, also arguably came about because the incident was cleared too quickly.
Figure caption,
What would you do to fix VAR?
Crucial failure in process a key cause
Completing a VAR review in the shortest possible time is not about skipping steps. And it was a critical mistake by Donohue and Antrobus.
Speed is a factor, but the most serious error in process came before Donohue tried to rush through the attacking phase.
Donohue asked the replay operator to stop the video on the first replay when Josko Gvardiol touched the ball to cross into the area. He then went immediately into the semi-automated offside technology.
This should not have happened.
The VAR team should have assessed the full picture, from the playing of the cross to the head of Haaland. This would have provided awareness of Fernandez's position and impact.
They did not, and the events inside the penalty area were not considered until the attacking phase was looked at.
By then, all that mattered to Donohue and Antrobus was whether Fernandez touched the ball. This would have created a new phase and placed Haaland offside.
Donohue has received much of the criticism, but arguably Antrobus' involvement, or lack of, was just as influential.
The AVAR's contribution to the entire review was to utter "no, yeah" about the potential touch by Fernandez. This was one second before Donohue uttered the words "final decision is goal, check complete".
Antrobus' role is to provide the checks and balances, to make sure the VAR has not missed anything. This fell short.
There has been only one lengthy VAR delay this season, in the game between Brentford and Sunderland. A Dan Ballard goal was ruled out for a subjective offside against Kevin Danso.
Antrobus was the AVAR in this game, too. There was a great deal of criticism in some parts of the media for that delay, which took over four minutes.
Could that have played on Antrobus' mind on Sunday? We cannot know for sure.
Ironically, Antrobus played a crucial role in steering VAR Tim Wood to the correct offside decision against Danso.
There is also the role of the support VAR, who sits in the operations room next to the match hub at Stockley Park and can intervene on points on protocol.
Aware of what was unfolding with the review, no action was taken.
It would still have been salvageable in the period between the goal being scored and the kick-off.
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Dedicated VARs not seen as the answer
Pro Ref has placed a huge level of training and resources into VAR in an attempt to make it as efficient and accurate as possible.
But when an error of this magnitude happens, no amount of investment can mask the failure.
There have been calls to appoint VAR specialists, yet this is exactly what Donohue is - in the Premier League's definition.
Three seasons ago, Pro Ref asked for candidates interested in becoming video officials.
All those who applied were put through aptitude tests. About 15 made it through to the final stages of training, of which 10 have officiated games in the Premier League.
One of those is Donohue, who on Sunday was the video official for the 65th time.
Such as been Donohue's development that he is now on the international list, appointed to Uefa club competition qualifying ties over the summer.
Donohue has made mistakes, in fact very few do not. It shows how difficult the role is.
The only two VARs to have a clear record over the last two seasons are Nick Hopton and Neil Davies, both graduates from the same accelerated programme.
Persuading referees to hang up their whistles and spend their professional lives in the VAR room is not easy, nor does it guarantee success.
Lee Mason and Mike Dean, the Premier League's only full-time VARs appointed after retirement, were both dismissed by Webb just a few months into his tenure because of a catalogue of errors.
One of the only leagues which has a full team of officials who only act as VARs and never go out on the pitch is Spain's La Liga and second division - yet one glance at the headlines there will tell you the controversy is no different to that in England.
At the start of last season the VAR completely missed that a player who scored a goal was in an offside position when the ball was played.
Pro Ref will have questions to answer over its processes and why a VAR is rushing so desperately over a review in one of the biggest games of the season.
That did not happen when West Ham's stoppage-time equaliser against Arsenal was ruled out last season. It took over four minutes - but the VAR came to the correct outcome.
The obsession with speed threatens to undermine all the work behind the scenes.
But that feels like a football problem and not one caused solely by the actions of the VAR.
AI-assisted · generated from BBC Sport reporting, not editor reviewed
