PGMOL chief Howard Webb argued that it was the right decision to disallow Virgil van Dijk’s header against Manchester City last Sunday, taking apart Arne Slot’s howls of inconsistency in the process.
Liverpool were soundly beaten 3–0 at the Etihad in a display so lopsided Slot was forced to shelve talk of defending their Premier League title. However, Van Dijk thought he had made it 1–1 in the first half after diverting a header into the bottom corner.
After an unusually long delay, the assistant referee raised his flag, judging that Andy Robertson was offside and “deemed to be making an obvious action directly in front of the goalkeeper.” Neither Van Dijk nor Slot were impressed.
The Dutch boss argued that it was a “clear wrong decision” from the refereeing team and VAR, who stood by the on-filed decision. Webb, in contrast, defended his colleagues.
“As the ball moves towards Robertson—three yards out from goal in the middle of the six-yard box—he makes that clear action to duck below the ball,” the referees chief explained on Match Officials Mic’d Up. “It goes just over his head and finds the goal in the half of the six-yard box where he is.
“The officials have to make a judgement, did that clear action impact on the goalkeeper and his ability to save the ball? That’s where the subjectivity comes into play. They looked at that action so close to the goalkeeper and formed that opinion.
“I know that’s not a view held by everybody but it’s not unreasonable to understand why [the officials] would form that conclusion when the player is so close to the goalkeeper, the ball is coming right towards him and he has to duck to get out of the way.
“They form the conclusion that it impacts [Gianluigi] Donnarumma’s ability to dive towards the ball and make the save.
“Once they’ve made that on-field decision, the job of the VAR is to look at that and decide, ‘Was the outcome clearly and obviously wrong?’ Only Donnarumma truly knows if he was impacted by this and we have to look at the factual evidence.”
Webb Shoots Down Arne Slot Argument
The final whistle had scarcely sounded before one of Liverpool’s staff members was shoving a screen in Slot’s face. “Immediately after the game, someone showed me the goal that the same referee allowed—City against Wolves last season,” he crowed.
That particular incident which Slot was referring to took place at Molineux in October 2024. John Stones’s 95th-minute winner was allowed to stand despite Bernardo Silva moving out of the ball’s path while stood in an offside position.
On that occasion, the goal was ruled out by the on-field referee only to be overturned. As the Premier League explained at the time: “VAR deemed Bernardo Silva wasn’t in the line of vision and had no impact on the goalkeeper.”
Webb had no time for this comparison. “There’s a clear difference here in that the ball goes directly over Sá’s head and doesn’t go over the head of Silva,” he sniffed. “He is in an offside position, importantly he moves away from the flight of the ball.
“It’s difficult to see this and think in any way Sá is impacted by the action of Silva. If the ball had gone over Silva’s head, maybe causing Sá to hesitate in case it hits Silva then we’d come out with the same outcome of disallowed goal.”
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Premier League Referees Chief Takes Controversial Stance on Disallowed Liverpool Goal.
