Howard Webb issues response to Liverpool ‘serious concerns’ as Van Dijk decision ‘not unreasonable’

PGMOL chief Howard Webb has shut down Liverpool’s reported ‘serious concerns’ regarding Virgil van Dijk’s disallowed goal against Manchester City.

On Sunday afternoon, Liverpool were deservedly beaten 3-0 by Man City via goals from Erling Haaland, Nico Gonzalez and Jeremy Doku.

The Reds produced a nothing performance in the first half against Man City before stepping up after the break, with one of their only good moments coming as Van Dijk had a goal disallowed after Haaland’s opener.

Van Dijk headed home from a corner, but the goal was chalked off as Andy Robertson was in an offside position, though he was not in Gianluigi Donnarumma’s line of sight when the centre-back made contact with the ball.

This moment could have changed the trajectory of the match and head coach Arne Slot subsequently hit out at this “obvious wrong decision”, while the PGMOL have been ‘contacted’ regarding the club’s ‘serious concerns’.

Now, Webb has responded and explained why it was “not unreasonable” to disallow Van Dijk’s header.

“As the ball moves towards Robertson – three yards out from goal in the middle of the six-yard box – he makes that clear action to duck below the ball. It goes just over his head and finds the goal in the half of the six-yard box where he is,” Webb said on Sky Sports’ Match Officials Mic’d Up show.

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“The officials have to make a judgement, did that clear action impact on the goalkeeper and his ability to save the ball? That’s where the subjectivity comes into play.

“They looked at that action so close to the goalkeeper and formed that opinion.

“I know that’s not a view held by everybody but it’s not unreasonable to understand why [the officials] would form that conclusion when the player is so close to the goalkeeper, the ball is coming right towards him and he has to duck to get out of the way.

“They form the conclusion that it impacts Donnarumma’s ability to dive towards the ball and make the save.

“Once they’ve made that on-field decision, the job of the VAR is to look at that and decide was the outcome clearly and obviously wrong.

“Only Donnarumma truly knows if he was impacted by this and we have to look at the factual evidence.”

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Slot also compared the Van Dijk decision to John Stones having a goal given for a similar incident against Wolves last season, but Webb has explained why there is a “clear difference”.

Webb added: “There’s a clear difference here in that the ball goes directly over [Wolves goalkeeper Jose] Sa’s head and doesn’t go over the head of Silva.

“He is in an offside position, importantly he moves away from the flight of the ball.

“It’s difficult to see this and think in any way Sa is impacted by the action of Silva. If the ball had gone over Silva’s head, maybe causing Sa to hesitate in case it hits Silva then we’d come out with the same outcome of disallowed goal.”