Premier League Admits Two Refereeing Errors: Arsenal Penalty and Haaland's Goal Against United

What a week for officiating in the Premier League. The league's key incidents panel took a scalpel to two plays that generated plenty of debate, and in both cases it admitted something went wrong. One hits close to home for Arsenal, the other involves Manchester United and Erling Haaland.

Let's start with Sunderland. On September 12, referee John Brooks pointed to the spot against Ezri Konsa for holding Dan Ballard at a corner. David Raya read Enzo Le Fee's intentions and saved the penalty, and the match finished 2-0 in favor of the home side. Mikel Arteta was furious in the moment, and afterward the club even reached out to Pro Ref for an explanation.

As it turns out, the five-person panel unanimously sided with the Spanish coach. Their conclusion was fairly graphic: "Although it was a scrappy passage of play in which Konsa initially had his arms around Ballard, Ballard performs a holding action that pulls Konsa toward him, causing both players to fall to the ground." In other words, there was no penalty.

That said, not everything went the same way: on whether VAR official Stuart Attwell should have stepped in to correct Brooks, the panel was split, with the view that there was no clear and obvious error prevailing by a 3-2 vote. A nuance that leaves the sense of justice only half restored.

Arteta held nothing back after the final whistle:

It's unacceptable. I watched it 20 times and I can't find a way to understand how they could think about giving a penalty in that situation, or how VAR is supposed to get involved. At this level, with all the work we put in, this can't happen.Mikel Arteta

The Haaland Goal That Shouldn't Have Counted

The other chapter points directly to the Manchester derby. On September 13, at Old Trafford, Haaland's decisive goal was allowed to stand after VAR official Matt Donohue and his assistant Blake Antrobus confirmed the Norwegian was onside. The problem is that while checking that, something else slipped through: Enzo Fernandez was in an offside position and interfering with play, and Michael Oliver was never sent to review it on the monitor.

Howard Webb, Pro Ref's head of officiating, explained it with a curious image: he said Donohue suffered from "tunnel vision," so focused on ruling out Haaland's offside and checking whether Fernandez had touched the ball that he missed the bigger picture. According to Webb, his assistants, Antrobus among them, should have pulled him out of that tunnel in time. Both were stood down from the following weekend's fixtures, and Pro Ref contacted United to acknowledge the mistake and promise a review of its processes.

The panel's summary, published on a Wednesday, was clear: "Fernandez is in an offside position, attempts to play a ball that is close to him, and affects the ability of the defender and goalkeeper to play it. A VAR review should have been recommended for a subjective offside not detected during the phase of offensive possession."

That same match had another decision under scrutiny: Phil Foden's red card for a kick on Bruno Fernandes. There, the panel was unanimous, the red card was correctly given, though it added that Fernandes' earlier reaction warranted at least a yellow card. In fact, had Oliver not sent off Foden on the field, VAR could have recommended that card for the Portuguese midfielder as part of the review of the play.