{"id":5950,"date":"2026-01-15T14:46:31","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T14:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=5950"},"modified":"2026-01-15T14:46:31","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T14:46:31","slug":"var-controversy-offside-or-not-manchester-city-and-arsenal-goal-incidents-in-the-spotlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=5950","title":{"rendered":"VAR controversy: Offside or not? Manchester City and Arsenal goal incidents in the spotlight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">You could not make it up, really. Just 24 hours after <\/b><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Manchester City<\/b><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\"> had a goal controversially ruled out through VAR, <\/b><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Arsenal<\/b><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\"> saw theirs stand.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Two EFL Cup semi-finals, two pretty similar offside situations, two different outcomes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Supporters crave consistency, so it is understandable that questions are being asked.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">How can the video assistant referee system chalk off a goal in one instance but allow it to stand in the other?<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When Manchester City&#8217;s Antoine Semenyo thought he had scored a second goal in Tuesday&#8217;s 2-0 win at Newcastle United, no-one seemed to have a clue there was anything untoward.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Then the VAR, Stuart Attwell, told referee Chris Kavanagh that an offside Erling Haaland was having an impact on Malick Thiaw&#8217;s defending as the ball went past en route to goal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Five and a half minutes after the ball crossed the line, the goal was disallowed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Fast forward to Wednesday and Ben White&#8217;s goal in Arsenal&#8217;s 3-2 victory at Chelsea. The ball had evaded an offside Viktor Gyokeres, who was jostling with Chelsea&#8217;s Marc Guiu. The VAR stayed out of it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Giving offside against Haaland is technically correct in law but it is a VAR over-reach. It is not the kind of intervention we have come to see in the Premier League, so by extension the same would be expected for the Carabao Cup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The goal incidents were comparable but not the same. Haaland was effectively protecting the path of the ball and could be considered to have been stopping Thiaw from getting to it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Guiu, however, had his back to play when White headed the ball and was not looking at the ball. It is harder to say the Chelsea player was in a position to stop the goal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You could not make it up, really. Just 24 hours after Manchester City had a goal controversially ruled out through VAR, Arsenal saw theirs stand. Two EFL Cup semi-finals, two pretty similar offside situations, two different outcomes. Supporters crave consistency, so it is understandable that questions are being asked. How can the video assistant referee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}