Former Premier League referee Mark Halsey has recently discussed whether West Bromwich Albion should’ve had their goal disallowed against Manchester United.
Halsey was recently talking exclusively to This Is Futbol and he talked about multiple refereeing decisions from the recent Premier League game week. One incident that he focused on was Diagne’s early goal against Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s Manchester United and whether that should’ve been disallowed by VAR.
Diagne outmuscled Victor Lindelof for the opener and he even put his hand on the Swede’s face before putting the ball into the back of the net via a header from close range past David de Gea.
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When talking about whether the goal could’ve been chalked off, Halsey said: “Man United have certainly got an argument, Diagne was all over Lindelof and has his hands on his face. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was disallowed but the VAR obviously didn’t think the on-field official made a clear and obvious error.”
The goal on Sunday was Diagne’s first for the Baggies but the striker did get an assist for the side in West Brom’s recent game against Fulham.
After the game, United skipper Harry Maguire had talked about the fact that Lindelof was fouled in the process and he is ‘fed up’ of hearing the fact that his teammate can do better in the goal. He believes that people shouldn’t even be speaking about De Gea as he feels Lindelof was fouled (as per Metro).
While the Baggies did get the controversial goal, they generated a higher xG (1.1) than Man Utd in the game (0.4). It suggests that the performance merited what they got out of it, while they also created more high-value chances than the opposition and they deserved something from the game (as per FBRef) – so you could argue there is not too much injustice about the result.
However, despite their well-earned point, fellow relegation strugglers Fulham managed to beat Everton later on Sunday, meaning that Sam Allardyce’s men are five points away from the Craven Cottage-based side.