Manchester Derby Winner Stands on a VAR Error Howard Webb Says Should Never Have Happened

Howard Webb has confirmed that Manchester City's 1-0 derby win at Old Trafford stands on a confirmed officiating error, admitting that VAR Matt Donohue and assistant VAR Blake Antrobus never properly assessed an offside offence by Enzo Fernandez in the build-up to Erling Haaland's winner Howard Webb's admission on BBC Sport.

This is not a marginal call that could have gone either way. Webb's own verdict is blunt: "this goal should've been disallowed", according to his comments on Pro Ref's Mic'd Up series Howard Webb's admission on BBC Sport. That leaves a result in the fiercest fixture in English football resting on a mistake the game's own refereeing chief says should never have happened.

The Error: How Fernandez's Offside Was Missed

Haaland thought he had scored the only goal of the game in the 60th minute at Old Trafford, only for the effort to be ruled out on the field for offside. A VAR review then found Haaland was onside by just three centimetres from Josko Gvardiol's cross, and the goal was awarded Howard Webb's admission on BBC Sport.

A Textbook Case of Interfering With Play

What the review never addressed was Fernandez diving into the ball in a central position, interfering with opponents as he did so. Manchester United defender Lisandro Martinez was in close proximity and goalkeeper Sanne Lammens was positioned to deal with Fernandez, making his impact on the passage of play about as clear as subjective offside offences get Howard Webb's admission on BBC Sport. Fans watching the replay at home could see it. The video officials, it turns out, never even looked properly.

Webb's 'Tunnel Vision' Explanation

The Mic'd Up audio, which Webb says he had already shared with Manchester United, provided the answer. Donohue and Antrobus never considered the Fernandez offside because they became fixated on Haaland's status alone.

"The VAR gets super-focused on Haaland. He establishes he's onside, he thinks that's a good goal. He doesn't truly evaluate the full impact of Fernandez's position."

Webb's phrase for this was "tunnel vision", a description independently reported by ESPN, which noted Webb said the assistant VAR should have pulled Donohue out of that narrow focus ESPN FC's report on the tunnel vision admission. Both accounts agree on the substance: the VAR checked whether Fernandez touched the ball, which would have created a new offside phase, but never made the separate, more obvious judgement that his position and movement clearly impacted play.

What Should Have Happened

Webb was explicit that this was a systemic breakdown rather than a marginal misread. "It's down to the rest of his team to pull him out of that tunnel, and unfortunately, that didn't happen on this occasion," he said Howard Webb's admission on BBC Sport. That is an admission that the checks and balances built into VAR protocol, not just one official's judgement, failed on the biggest stage in the domestic calendar.

Semi-Automated Offside Technology Scrutinised

Semi-automated offside technology exists to remove doubt from marginal calls by tracking limb positions against the moment of the pass. It did its job on Haaland, producing a precise three-centimetre reading. But the Old Trafford incident shows how a tool built to answer one narrow question can crowd out the broader, subjective judgement a human official still has to make.

A System Under Growing Strain

Once Donohue had his onside confirmation for Haaland, the review effectively stopped there instead of widening out to the players around the ball. Webb himself called it "unusual", but this incident lands amid a longer run of VAR controversies since the system's introduction, each testing supporters' patience a little further and reopening the question of whether officials are being trained to check the full picture or simply the headline data point.

A Night of Double Standards: The Foden-Fernandes Row

The Fernandez decision was not the only talking point from Old Trafford. Phil Foden was sent off in the 23rd minute for kicking out at Bruno Fernandes, but no action was taken against an earlier, similar kick by the United captain.

• Webb backed the Foden red card: "He kicks out with force into the upper body of Bruno Fernandes."
• He said Fernandes' earlier kick into Foden's backside was "more petulant than violent" and would only have merited a yellow card.
• Webb noted that had Foden been sent off via a VAR review rather than on the field, as happened with Aston Villa's Joao Gomes at Brighton last month, Fernandes' offence would likely have been identified at the pitchside monitor too Howard Webb's admission on BBC Sport.

An Inconsistency Problem, Not Just an Offside Problem

Taken alongside the missed Fernandez offside, the Foden-Fernandes sequence points to something broader than a single unlucky error. Two separate decision-making processes in the same match, one on-field and one video-assisted, both left obvious gaps unaddressed until pundits and supporters picked them apart afterwards.

What Accountability Actually Looks Like for VAR

The only confirmed consequence so far is that Donohue and Antrobus "will not be officiating again until after the international break", according to Webb Howard Webb's admission on BBC Sport. There is no suggestion of a wider review of how Pro Ref trains officials to use semi-automated technology, nor any indication the result itself carries any weight for the Premier League table beyond Webb's public apology.

That matters because the stakes were real. A derby win at Old Trafford is worth more than three points in the title picture, and betting markets settled on a 1-0 City scoreline that Webb himself says should not have happened. A brief stand-down for two officials, with no structural fix confirmed, looks less like accountability and more like damage limitation.

What happens next

Webb has promised Pro Ref will "review it, reflect upon it, and try to take the learning forward to prevent this unusual type of error from happening again", but no concrete changes to VAR protocol have been announced. Manchester United have received the audio and video from the incident, though there is no mechanism to overturn a result once confirmed.

The more pressing question is whether this becomes an isolated embarrassment or the moment supporters, clubs and broadcasters start demanding structural change, whether that is live VAR audio, tighter offside review checklists, or independent oversight of Pro Ref's officiating standards. Until then, City's derby win stands, Fernandez's offside goes unpunished, and the debate over VAR's reliability rolls on to the next controversial weekend.