Daniel Feliciano

Mon 10 October 2022 16:10, UK

Dermot Gallagher believes VAR did the right thing in ruling out Marcus Rashford’s goal during Manchester United’s win over Everton on Sunday.

The Toffees saw a 1-0 lead turn into a 2-1 defeat at Goodison Park after Alex Iwobi’s screamer was ruled out by goals from Antony and Cristiano Ronaldo in the first half.

But Rashford thought he’d made it 3-1 late on, only for VAR to rule it out when the ball struck his arm after a challenge by James Tarkowski and Gallagher told Sky Sports’ “Ref watch” segment [10 October] that it was the right decision.

 “It does strike his hand but he’s the only player involved in the move,” he said.

“He scores and it doesn’t go to any other player. You can argue that he’s still got to go on and score but there’s not another player involved.

“The fact that an Everton player plays it onto him is immaterial. It’s about whether it strikes his hand or arm. And it does strike his arm.”

No chance

There is no way that the decision to rule out Rashford’s goal was the wrong one, because the rules are pretty straightforward on this one.

Ultimately United probably deserved the win, and arguably a third goal on the night, because we were not at the races for the vast majority of the game.

But as Frank Lampard said after the game, it was a bit of a reality check that this team isn’t quite where it wants to be and they must remain focused and sharp to get there.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing that we lost this game, because very few people would have expected three points from a game against Man United but it’s still disappointing that we didn’t turn up the way we know we can.

Now we must regroup and reset ahead of the clash with Tottenham at the weekend as we look to avoid back to back defeats.