Gary Neville believes VAR officials were wrong to award Manchester City's winner against Manchester United at Old Trafford. The striker's goal was initially disallowed for offside before VAR overturned the decision. The VAR officials deemed Haaland was played onside by Man Utd defender Patrick Dorgu. However, Man City's Enzo Fernandez was in an offside position as he attempted to play the ball before it reached Haaland. Despite not touching the ball, Fernandez's movement appeared to impact the defending of Man Utd's Lisandro Martinez before Haaland's back-post finish, which by the laws of the game should have led to the goal remaining disallowed.

In their post on X explaining why the goal was awarded, the Premier League Match Centre wrote: 'VAR checked the referee's call of no goal for offside - and determined that Haaland was in an onside position and recommended that the goal was awarded. The VAR also deemed that while in an offside position, Fernandez didn't play the ball.' That stress on Fernandez not playing the ball chimed with replays shown during the VAR review in which the VAR officials apparently sought to detect whether or not the City midfielder played the ball.

However, the offside rule clearly stipulates that a player can be offside despite not playing the ball and can interfere with an opponent by preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent's line of vision, challenging an opponent for the ball, clearly attempting to play a ball which is close when this action impacts on an opponent, or making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball.

'They're the words that I think - emphatically - means we will see an apology from Pro Ref,' said Neville. 'There is no doubt that Enzo is attempting to play the ball and putting Lisandro Martinez off. It's a really strange one. They'll recognise they got that wrong.' Speaking on his podcast, Neville continued: 'I think they are ignoring the rule. They are digging themselves a bigger hole. I'm really surprised they put that out. They will have to retract that.'