PGMOL chief Howard Webb has admitted Nathan Ake’s goal against Fulham should have been disallowed in Manchester City’s win on Saturday.
Fulham head coach Marco Silva was furious after Michael Oliver allowed Nathan Ake’s header to stand – making it 2-1 to City – just before half-time, despite Manuel Akanji being in an offside position in the line of version of goalkeeper Bernd Leno. Silva told the BBC afterwards that the decision ‘was a huge mistake made by people who have never played football,’ whilst Manchester City striker Erling Haaland said he ‘would have been fuming’ had it happened to his side.
Speaking during a Premier League ‘Match Officials Mic’d Up’ programme fronted by Michael Owen on Tuesday evening, Webb said:
“From the outset, I want to say this should have been disallowed. These are not always easy to call because you are trying to get two pieces of information together. Is the player in an offside position, which official is in a good position to see, and what consequence was there of the player being in that position and how it impacts the opponents?
It certainly appears that Akanji has an impact on Bernd Leno, the goalkeeper seems to hesitate. The officials on the field gave the goal, they did not see the obvious action that impacted Leno’s ability to play the ball.
They did not feel it was clearly impactful on Leno’s ability to play the ball but when you see it, you can see that hesitation by the goalkeeper who was waiting to see whether the ball made contact with Akanji, which would have deflected the ball.
Unfortunately it was not identified on the day and the learning from this will be shared from all of our group because we are looking to do better each and every week – and this was an error.”
Does that help Fulham -NO
Everyone who has played football knows it was offside so why is Webb making excuses for the officials yet again.
He is not helping anyone -get rid for good of these clowns for good not just miss a week.This has happened every week so far this season !!!
Up to that moment Fulham were well in the game.
Oliver and VAR ruined our game.COYW
One of the problems with this is that their decisions are always taken out of context. We were 1-1 with City, and going pretty to-to-toe with them at the time of the incident. It’s never good to concede just before half time, and had the goal been disallowed we would have gone in at the break feeling pretty good with ourselves. As the goal stood, and controversially, our players, and our manager were all thrown off balance, and I feel it completely undermined our second half performance.
VAR is just people’s opinions, just as are the referee’s and lines people. Whether it’s three, or six, or nine hundred people there will always be differences of opinion…
We will need to make a modification to our chant. From now on it will have to be ; ‘You’ve only got fifteen men’
Cheated again. Game ruined, day ruined by jokers who don’t know their arse from their elbow. Its hard enough to match the best club side in the world, which is what we were doing. But when they have the officials in their pocket, its impossible.
Thank you Mr Webb for stating the obvious, but how does that help us? It happens to consistently against us, please tell me there is not a conspiracy, because I am beginning to think there is.