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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Sport
Elliott Jackson

Manchester United and Liverpool fans disagree after controversial VAR penalty decision

Manchester United and Liverpool fans were left unsurprisingly split after VAR overruled a controversial penalty decision in favour of the hosts.

Bruno Fernandes gave United the lead at Old Trafford after his shot took a wild deflection off Nat Phillips after neat work from Aaron Wan-Bissaka.

With the score at 1-0, Liverpool thought they had the perfect opportunity to draw level when referee Anthony Taylor pointed to the spot.

Eric Bailly was adjudged to have fouled Phillips in the area, although replays showed the Ivory Coast defender played the ball first and made minimal contact with the Liverpool man.

After consulting VAR, Taylor headed to the monitor, before reversing his decision entirely.

Manchester United fans were delighted that the spot-kick was overturned, whilst some Liverpool fans felt aggrieved by the decision.

Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher both initially claimed it was a penalty kick, having felt Bailly's followthrough caught Phillips, before softening their view after watching the replay.

“We had a good view as well and Bailly will feel like he got the ball, which he did, but it’s that lack of composure, that rashness, that Eric Bailly has in his game where he just follows through," Neville said.

"There’s no doubt that you can’t follow through like that, he just kicks through his shin, that is the problem for Bailly, he does tend to have that in him. It wouldn’t be a penalty in our day, would it?”

Carragher replied: “No, it wouldn’t - and that’s what I’m talking about; it’s not about how much he gets the ball, it’s about the follow-through.

"When you slow it down, it doesn’t look as bad but when we watch it in real-time, as soon as it happened, you think: ‘Oof’.”

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