Spurs v Manchester City

Another mess. Mr Gillett doesn't seem to disallow the goal immediately but apparently did. VAR starts checking. Conclusion is (I paraphrase): despite it looks like a defender or two may have committed a handball offence, it's decided that it didn’t conclusively not touch the scorer's arm so onfield decision stands.

Here's the conundrum (apart from Mr Gillett's Xray eyes! - or was it on AR's call?). VAR with umpteen angles can't prove the attacker didn't handle the ball while scoring but does not (cannot?) tell the referee that defenders may have committed handball offences before the attacker scored. Could VAR not have suggested an onfield review of potential missed penalty offences before the goal was scored?

Put another way: if the ball hits a player's hand or arm in a natural position, that's not a handball offence unless he scores. But between the action that would not usually be an offence and the action that makes it an offence (scoring) an opponent handles the ball with his arm in an unnatural position - so should the latter action be penalised rather than the offence which hasn't yet happened? If you see what I mean...

Start at 07:05 https://www.mancity.com/citytv/mens...ay-extended-highlights-february-2025-63876192

Probably did look messy, but I'm not sure there is any other way around it...

• Factually, if it hit Haaland's arm, he scored immediately after so it has to be a handball offence.
• On field decision is handball (not immediately clear as you say, but that could be as much the TV coverage fault as the referee.
• If it did hit Haaland's arm and a defender committed a handball offence (which I can't tell as the highlights on my work computer are jumpy as hell), the Haaland handball offence would come first, so any subsequent handball offence by a defender would have occured after.
• VAR doesn't have an angle that can prove the on field decision of handball was incorrect

Ultimately, because VAR can't prove that Haaland's handball is incorrect, any subsequent offence of the same severity would be irrelevant because we penalise the first offence.
Again, it's a tricky one to comprehend though, as Haaland's offence only becomes a handball offence when he puts the ball in the back of the net. So does that mean it comes after the (potential) handball offence by the defender? Factually in order that it occurred, surely it can't?

Either way, law doesn't really cover it, on field decision has to stand on that basis too.

Or the R considered it unnatural position or deliberate I. Which case whether he score or not doesn’t matter.

As for as schroeddinger’s cat scenario, I think a defensive handball between an attacker’s incidental HB and a goal should result in a PK—but could not be DOGSO as a goal could not score from the attacker

Really frustrating one...(as a fan)

I'd be pretty sure there's no handball offende but since you can't prove it as the video isn't conclusive you can't overturn the decision...definitely not enough for a pen from the spurs handball

One of those really horrible incidents, made even worse by the referee apparently using x-ray vision. Can't see any angle where the R could have seen handball by Haaland, from his position looking through three or four players. Also, R seems to slip during the incident, which must have further affected him.
Decision by VAR seems to have been made on the basis the they couldn't prove there had been no handball. (Neither apparently could it prove that there was).
Most interesting point to me was seemingly a complete lack of interest in any appeal by Spurs defenders.
No glory for R or VAR on this one.

This was one that VAR was in a no win situation. Handball was given on pitch, VAR can't be sure whether the ball hit his arm or not so can't intervene and goal is disallowed. Had handball not been given on pitch VAR would have checked, not been sure that the ball hit his hand so the goal would be allowed.

I'd argue this is how it should work. The referee made a decision, or rather more likely his AR did, and VAR despite having multiple angles and slow motions couldn't say for sure that the decision was wrong. Therefore the referee's decision stood, is that not textbook VAR operation?

es1 said:

Really frustrating one...(as a fan)

I'd be pretty sure there's no handball offende but since you can't prove it as the video isn't conclusive you can't overturn the decision...definitely not enough for a pen from the spurs handball

Click to expand...

Why not enough for a penalty for the Spurs handball?

Unless you think JG gave handball for deliberate handball against Haaland (rather than just handball when scoring) then when the goal was disallowed, why wouldn't VAT look for a possible penalty? If the ball touched the Spurs defender's hand with the arm unnaturally away from the body, that's an offence. If Haaland hadn't scored, would VAR have looked more closely at the defender's handball? Put it another way - Haaland thought it was handball by the defender(s) - so he'd have been better off not scoring and instead appealing for a penalty - but only if he thought the ball had touched his arm somewhere ...

Yes, it's a mess - especially if it's VAR "textbook operation"!

Belatedly, I'm going to mention too a 76th minute incident where Doku was put through and Darren Cann raised his flag in exactly the usual circumstance for wait and see for keeping the flag down. Even more curiously, the TV editors didn't show a replay, or any angle that would confirm the decision, but cut to Thomas Tuchel in the stands. I've only just watched the full match replay and can't share the incident, but that was very odd.