Dan Burn joked about the controversial VAR decision during Newcastle’s Carabao Cup semi-final clash with Manchester City which saw Antoine Semenyo’s second goal ruled out for offside.
Semenyo met a corner from Tijjani Reijnders and directed his shot wide of goalkeeper Nick Pope, defender Malick Thiaw and striker Erling Haaland in a moment which City thought had doubled their lead in the league cup tie.
However, VAR intervened before play resumed and took five-and-a-half minutes to decide that Erling Haaland was in an offside position and interfering with play.
At the conclusion of the game, which Man City won 2-0, Burn along with fellow Sky Sports pundits Micah Richards and Jamie Redknapp was asked to review the incident with Burn, who plays for Newcastle but missed tonight’s match due to injury, joking that it was ‘a great decision’.
“I think it was a great decision,” laughed Burn before giving a fairer assessment and adding: “I do think it was the right decision but I don’t like the ‘subjective offside’. It’s offside or it’s not.”
Richards and Redknapp went into further detail and explained their disappointment with the VAR process.
Richards said: “I understand the process but VAR wasn’t brought in for this reason here. This is anti-goal which they said they weren’t going to do. This for me is re-refereeing the game.
“If you look at Thiaw and Haaland they’ve both got [hold] of each other. It might be right, but I don’t think we should be giving away goals for this.”
Redknapp explained: “If they would have given the goal there wouldn’t have been one person that said ‘this shouldn’t have been allowed’. But by the letter of the law, whether we like it or not, it ends up being the right decision.
“It’s five-and-a-half minutes of my life I’ll never get back. We all feel sorry for the fans that have paid, everyone at home. Once you can see that they’re [Haaland and Thiaw] impacting each other and you can see [Haaland] is behind which is deemed an offside decision, just give it.”
Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola offered a fierce response to the VAR process as well. He said: “Four officials and VAR were not able to take the decision, they had to go to the referee.
“We know how it works and that will make us stronger. It’s in that situation how we react. It’s the semi-finals. We play for a lot to reach the finals. It will make us stronger.”
