Virgil van Dijk thought he had levelled the score for Liverpool against Manchester City, only to see his goal ruled out for offside.<\/p>\n
The flag went up shortly after the Dutch defender appeared to have cancelled out Erling Haaland\u2019s opener, with Andy Robertson deemed to be standing in an offside position and obstructing Gianluigi Donnarumma\u2019s view.<\/p>\n
VAR backed referee Chris Kavanagh\u2019s decision, agreeing that while Robertson was indeed offside, he had also made an \u201cobvious action\u201d in front of the goalkeeper by ducking as Van Dijk\u2019s header flew past\u2014allegedly impeding Donnarumma\u2019s line of sight.<\/p>\n
According to the Premier League\u2019s rules, a player is penalised for offside if they:<\/p>\n
Clearly block an opponent\u2019s view of the ball,<\/p>\n
Challenge an opponent for the ball,<\/p>\n
Attempt to play the ball in a way that affects an opponent, or<\/p>\n
Make an obvious action that impacts an opponent\u2019s ability to play the ball.<\/p>\n
However, many felt the officials made the wrong call. While Robertson was in front of Donnarumma, replays showed the Italian goalkeeper had an almost clear view of Van Dijk\u2019s header and little chance of saving it. Robertson\u2019s movement seemed instinctive rather than obstructive.<\/p>\n
Former Manchester City defender Micah Richards was among those who disagreed with the decision. Speaking on Sky Sports, he said:<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t agree with that. I think it\u2019s harsh. The goalkeeper can see it all the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gary Neville also sided with Liverpool, saying on commentary:<\/p>\n
\u201cI think [Robertson] is outside the goalkeeper\u2019s eyeline. Slot has every right to be fuming\u2014there\u2019s no way the keeper\u2019s getting to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although Liverpool\u2019s overall performance at the Etihad left much to be desired, the controversial VAR call arguably changed the course of the game, denying Arne Slot\u2019s side a vital equaliser before Nico Gonzalez\u2019s strike sealed the result for City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Virgil van Dijk thought he had levelled the score for Liverpool against Manchester City, only to see his goal ruled out for offside. The flag went up shortly after the Dutch defender appeared to have cancelled out Erling Haaland\u2019s opener, with Andy Robertson deemed to be standing in an offside position and obstructing Gianluigi Donnarumma\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":54029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Virgil-van-Dijk-Chris-Kavanagh-Liverpool-Man-City-Premier-League.jpg.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54028"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54031,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54028\/revisions\/54031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/54029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}