‘Edge cases’ blamed for long VAR delay before City’s disallowed Semenyo goal

• Semi-automated offside technology was not available

• High number of bodies in the box prevented its use

Semi-automated offside technology (SAOT) failed during Newcastle and Manchester City’s Carabao Cup semi-final on Tuesday night, leading to a five-minute delay in ruling out an Antoine Semenyo goal.

The lengthy deliberation, that required VAR officials to manually apply the lines which eventually found Erling Haaland to have influenced play from an offside position, became the major talking point of the game. City’s manager, Pep Guardiola, criticised VAR in his post-match interviews and said the offside ruling had helped his team to win because it had made his players “angry”.