{"id":171807,"date":"2025-11-09T18:08:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T18:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/171807\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T18:08:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T18:08:10","slug":"van-dijk-disallowed-goal-vs-man-city-vars-baffling-explanation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/171807\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Dijk Disallowed Goal vs. Man City: VAR&#8217;s Baffling Explanation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b><a data-ail=\"330063\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thisisanfield.com\/liverpool-fc\/virgil-van-dijk\/\" title=\"Virgil van Dijk\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Virgil van Dijk<\/a> looked to have levelled the scores before half-time with a brilliant header against <a data-ail=\"330063\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thisisanfield.com\/liverpool-fc\/man-city\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Man City<\/a>, only to be harshly ruled out for <a data-ail=\"330063\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thisisanfield.com\/liverpool-fc\/andy-robertson\/\" title=\"Andy Robertson\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Andy Robertson<\/a>\u2018s offside.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Van Dijk headed in from a <a data-ail=\"330063\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thisisanfield.com\/liverpool-fc\/mohamed-salah\/\" title=\"Mohamed Salah\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Mohamed Salah<\/a> delivery to cancel out Erling Haaland\u2019s own headed opener \u2013 but soon after saw his goal ruled out as the linesman waved his flag.<\/p>\n<p>The decision was checked and cleared by VAR Michael Oliver, with the <a data-ail=\"330063\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thisisanfield.com\/liverpool-fc\/premier-league\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Premier League<\/a>\u2018s match centre providing an official explanation soon after.<\/p>\n<p>Their statement reads: \u201cThe referee\u2019s call of offside and no goal to Liverpool was checked and confirmed by VAR \u2013 with Robertson in an offside position and deemed to be <b>making an obvious action directly in front of the goalkeeper<\/b>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-lazy-type=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/vvdgoalmanc-600x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" class=\"lazy lazy-hidden alignnone size-medium wp-image-330064\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Robertson was stood near <a data-ail=\"330063\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thisisanfield.com\/liverpool-fc\/man-city\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Man City<\/a> goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma but was clearly not blocking the Italian\u2019s view of a header he had no chance of saving regardless.<\/p>\n<p>The Scot ducked out of any line of vision the officials claimed would be blocked, and in fact it was <a data-ail=\"330063\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thisisanfield.com\/liverpool-fc\/man-city\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Man City<\/a> winger Jeremy Doku who was closer to being considered in the way.<\/p>\n<p>It meant Liverpool were denied a timely equaliser not long before half-time, which would clearly have been a confidence-booster heading into the second half.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-lazy-type=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/P2025-11-09-Man_City_Liverpool-40-600x400.jpg\" alt=\"MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - Sunday, November 9, 2025: Manchester City's captain Bernardo Silva pleads for a penalty but referee Chris Kavanagh awards a free kick to Liverpool following a foul on Liverpool's Ibrahima Konat\u00e9 during the FA Premier League match between Manchester City FC and Liverpool FC at the City of Manchester Stadium. (Photo by David Rawcliffe\/Propaganda)\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" class=\"lazy lazy-hidden alignnone size-medium wp-image-330056\"  \/><\/p>\n<p><a data-ail=\"330063\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thisisanfield.com\/liverpool-fc\/man-city\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Man City<\/a> were earlier given a penalty after <a data-ail=\"330063\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thisisanfield.com\/liverpool-fc\/giorgi-mamardashvili\/\" title=\"Giorgi Mamardashvili\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Giorgi Mamardashvili<\/a> grazed Doku\u2019s trailing leg with his knee, only for the Georgian to deny Haaland from the spot.<\/p>\n<p>There was little Mamardashvili could do for Haaland\u2019s looping header for 1-0, however.<\/p>\n<p>As part of Sky Sports\u2019 live coverage of the game, commentator and former <a data-ail=\"330063\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thisisanfield.com\/liverpool-fc\/man-united\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Man United<\/a> defender Gary Neville said: \u201cDonnarumma had a clear sight of it, he was never going to get there. Liverpool are right to be fuming.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a data-ail=\"330063\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thisisanfield.com\/liverpool-fc\/man-city\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Man City<\/a> then went into half-time 2-0 up as midfielder Nico Gonzalez\u2019s long-range effort deflected in off Van Dijk\u2019s attempted block.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Virgil van Dijk looked to have levelled the scores before half-time with a brilliant header against Man City,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,19,17,98091,40145,132,16507],"class_list":{"0":"post-171807","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-man-city-vs-liverpool","12":"tag-referee","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-var"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115521081223284863","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}