Howard Webb says VAR got it wrong as audio heard for Andre Onana vs Wolves clash
PGMOL chief and former Premier League referee Howard Webb has admitted that the officials and VAR made an error during Manchester United’s 1-0 opening day win against Wolves at Old Trafford.
On Andre Onana’s United debut, he clattered into Wolves striker Sasa Kaldzjic whilst attempting to punch clear a cross in added time, but on-field referee Simon Hooper didn’t point to the spot and VAR opted not to send him to the screen to review his decision.
PGMOL immediately apologised for not recommending a review during the game and denying Wolves the perfect chance to equalise in added time.
Speaking on the Premier League’s Match Officials Mic’d Up, Webb said: "I think from the outset I want to say that should have led to an intervention by VAR.
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"We should have seen a video review being recommended and the referee should have gone to the screen. I’m confident he would have seen the images that we’ve seen and would have awarded a penalty.
"We hear the VAR in this circumstance going through the checking phase once the penalty has not been awarded and he is describing what he has seen – Onana coming out and contact with the Wolves player, Kalajdzic.
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"[The VAR] starts to go down the road, I believe, towards recommending a video review, but then he overthinks it a little bit. Sometimes the VARs can do that. They’re trying to identify what the game would expect in terms of what is and isn’t a clear and obvious error.
"And when he sees these two players come together, he knows that sometimes that can happen and it’s not a foul. In this case quite interestingly neither Onana nor Kalajdzic plays the ball, so he sees in the end that as a coming together, a collision of two players, and decided not to intervene.
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"But the difference in this one is that Onana jumps into the Wolves player. Kalajdzic is just jumping up and not into Onana. So it’s not two players coming together, it’s one going into the other.
"We didn’t recommend a review. We should have done. We acknowledge that as an error, which, of course, was disappointing. We took the learning from that, obviously, to try and ensure going forward that type of error doesn’t happen again.
"We think it’s important we acknowledge clear errors. When it’s clear like this one, we don’t want people to benchmark against this situation. This was clearly wrong – if this happens the following week, we expect a penalty to be given.
"So, I think it’s only right we acknowledge errors when they happen, acknowledge that wasn’t correct; and we expect to see something different next time."
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