Manchester City’s 2-0 win over Newcastle in the first leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final was overshadowed by a contentious decision to disallow a goal from Antoine Semenyo in the second half.
The £65m January signing fired City ahead after 53 minutes and thought he had added a second 10 minutes later when he flicked Tijjani Reijnders’ cross past Nick Pope.
However, the forward was denied what would have been a third goal in two games for his new side after a five-and-a-half-minute VAR check determined Erling Haaland had interfered with play from an offside position.
“The second goal should have stood,” Semenyo said after the game.
Haaland was jostling for position with Newcastle’s Malick Thiaw when he was deemed to have obstructed the defender from stopping Semenyo’s effort.
Both players were closer to goal than goalkeeper Pope, meaning that whether Haaland was ahead of Thiaw, the deepest Newcastle outfield player, was irrelevant. The factual offside appeared quite clear.
However, a failure of the semi-automated offside technology meant the lines had to be drawn manually and it was more than four minutes before an image confirming the offside was shown on the television coverage.
In that time, the crowd at St James’ Park had grown increasingly restless, with boos and anti-VAR chants filling much of the delay.
After more than four minutes, referee Chris Kavanagh was finally sent to the screen to assess whether Haaland had affected Pope or Thiaw’s ability to play the ball.
Kavanagh watched the incident several times on the pitchside monitor before, five minutes and 40 seconds after the ball hit the back of the net, he announced his decision to disallow the goal.
Speaking to Sky Sports after the game, Pep Guardiola said the disallowed goal will make his side “stronger”.
Guardiola added: “I’d like to know why VAR in the 60th minute of the Premier League game against Newcastle – that we lost 2-1 – it was 0-0 and it was a penalty for [Fabian] Schar on Phil Foden, not even consideration.
“In the 20th minute there is an unbelievable penalty for the shot for Jeremy Doku off the hand, and not even VAR.
“I’m pretty sure Howard Webb [technical director for Professional Game Match Officials] is going to call me tomorrow to take explanations for that.
“Today was more than six minutes [reviewing] and we’re not even able to discuss it with the referee. But they will call me.”
