Virgil van Dijk saw his equalising goal against Manchester City chalked off for offside.
The flag was raised after the Liverpool centre-back appeared to have restored parity following Erling Haaland’s first-half goal.
Andy Robertson was believed to have been standing in an offside position and impeding Gianluigi Donnarumma’s view.
Virgil van Dijk goal was overturned after Andy Robertson action
According to the Premier League match centre, the VAR team supporting the officiating of the Premier League encounter entirely agreed with referee Chris Kavanagh’s view.
Not only was the Scottish left-back in an offside position, but he was also believed to have made an ‘obvious action’ in front of the opposing goalkeeper.
That ‘obvious action’? Robertson had ducked to avoid Van Dijk’s headed effort on goal, whilst allegedly impeding his opponent’s view.
According to the Premier League’s own rules, a player will be penalised for:
- Preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision; or
- Challenging an opponent for the ball; or
- 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 the opponent to play the ball
Was this the right refereeing decision?
In our view, the officiating team at the Etihad Stadium have got this badly wrong.
The former Hull City fullback was standing in front of Donnarumma, but he’s clearly not blocking the Italy international’s line of sight.
Judging by the angle of Van Dijk’s initial header and the opposing goalkeeper’s positioning, he has an almost unobstructed line of sight.
Robertson then instinctively ducks to avoid accidental contact with the ball on its way towards goal.
Looking at where the ball nestles finally in the net, we can all surely agree that there’s no chance of Donnarumma reaching the effort.
Micah Richards and Gary Neville surprised with VAR decision
Even ex-Man City defender Micah Richards disagreed with the decision to overturn Van Dijk’s equaliser.
“I wouldn’t agree with that [that Robertson made an ‘obvious action’],” the 37-year-old spoke on Sky Sports.
“I think it’s harsh. Yeah, I think the defender’s trying to get up and catch him offside, but I think the goalkeeper can see it all the way.”
"I think it's really harsh"
Micah Richards and Roy Keane share their thoughts on the disallowed Liverpool goal 🔍 pic.twitter.com/MqIah11v1u
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) November 9, 2025
Speaking on comms, Gary Neville agreed: “I think [Robertson] is outside the eyeline of the goalkeeper.
“I think Slot is right to be fuming. The goalkeeper is not getting anywhere near that. He had a clear line of sight.”
Liverpool, of course, have been far from value for money over the course of the tie.
But it’s a decision that does change the nature of the game, denying the Reds an opportunity to level the score before Nico Gonzalez’s speculative effort doubled the scoreline for the hosts.
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Unlucky but the team did not play like they did on Tuesday. Yes it could have been a different ball game if the score is even but city are dominating and attacking even when they are a goal up. It is inevitable city will go ahead again. Just got to regroup and go again.
Thanks for commenting, my friend! Totally agree – we were outplayed. Just lacking the same intensity and desire shown against Madrid. No shame to lose to a Guardiola side, with that performance, at the Etihad, but still disappointing! We’ve got a good run of games coming up, which we should capitalise on.
The decision of referee is totally Rong, I think Liverpool where robbed
Thanks for commenting, Marvellous! To be fair to City, I think they were comprehensively the better side. But if the Van Dijk goal goes ahead (as it should have, in my view) the game state is 1-1 heading towards HT. Have to wonder how that affects Liverpool’s mindset going into the second half.
I think Etikitike’ s attitude is terrible,Robertson also playing badly we had same situation when we played the german team and today how on earth can a defender be the last on yhe penalty box even though he did not attack the ball.
Controversial, I know, but the last point of “Making an obvious action that impacts an opponent’s ability to play the ball”, could be the reason for disallowing Virgil’s goal.
Andy isn’t obstructing the goalie’s line of sight or physically stopping his movement, but what he is doing is sowing a seed of doubt in the goalie’s mind as to whether he is going to glance the ball in some way.
It happen too fast for the goalie to decide it doesn’t matter because Andy’s offside and so this causes the goalie to dive a fraction later than if Andy wasn’t there.
Can see both sides tbh.
That said, City deserved the win, we didn’t.
We pick ourselves up and start again after the international break…
There is no offside here as there is no offence on any of the listed rules. This is a clear case of lack of analytical training to the referees, but VAR referee, and Referee after Veiwing Screen. are both totally Criminal to not see no rule is broken. Liverpool were cheated and although they were generally playing badly. who knows what spirit that goal could have given them?
Robertson is in an offside position AT THE MOMENT Virgil heads the ball FORWARD to his position. There is only the goalie nearer the goal/bye line than him.
It cannot be denied.
Where there is a grey area, is because of the historic allowing such scenarios to play out, when the player deemed in an offside position is NOT believed to impacting play.
V.A.R. and the referee did.
On another day ie. The City vs Wolves game (which was played on MotD and BBC News this morning), it showed a similar scenario where the player in “The Robertson position” was obstructing and thus impacting play.
It is an exposé of the double standards that drive us mad as fans and have us suspect that there is bias and possibly corruption occurring in the game.
#115 charges are due to be looked at again this month, unless the lawyers can find a way to stall further ?
The offside rule and it’s nuances over interpretation have been a topic of great political discussion within the game for decades.
Back in the 70’s, many good goals were chalked off due to players straying into offside positions even though they were on the other side of the pitch and yards away from opposition players.
In order to create more attractive football, the rules were relaxed, so creating a subjective path to where we are now.
A hazy situation, where from one referee to another, nobody can provide a standardised principled rule week in, week out AND across all FIFA members.
Do we just go back to the old way ?
It was an LFC manager who said something along the lines of “If you’re not interfering with play, you shouldn’t be on the pitch”.