{"id":288001,"date":"2026-02-08T23:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T23:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/288001\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T23:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T23:52:12","slug":"why-was-dominik-szoboszlai-sent-off-var-controversy-explained-as-man-city-goal-ruled-out-in-win-over-liverpool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/288001\/","title":{"rendered":"Why was Dominik Szoboszlai sent off? VAR controversy explained as Man City goal ruled out in win over Liverpool"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Liverpool's Dominik Szoboszlai walks down the tunnel after being sent off\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/3111517f-8d0b-49b8-8abe-1d7a383c5ee6.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Liverpool&#8217;s Dominik Szoboszlai walks down the tunnel after being sent off<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Manchester City\u2019s crucial victory over Liverpool ended in bizarre scenes at Anfield as Dominik Szoboszlai was sent off for denying a goal-scoring opportunity \u2013 despite City scoring a goal from that opportunity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Szoboszlai had earlier scored a stunning free-kick to give Liverpool the lead, before Bernardo Silva poached an equaliser and Erling Haaland converted a late penalty to give City the advantage in added time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Rayan Cherki thought he had scored a bizarre late, late third to cap a wild game with Alisson Becker well out of his area \u2013 only for the goal to be ruled out after a VAR review, which led to Szoboszlai being sent off instead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The Hungarian international had tussled with Haaland as Cherki\u2019s shot rolled into an empty net, and although referee Craig Pawson was initially happy to allow the goal to stand, he later changed his decision to a free-kick and red card after consulting his pitch-side monitor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Pawson explained to the Anfield crowd: \u201cAfter review, there is a careless foul by Erling Haaland on the shirt of Dominik Szoboszlai. Prior to that, Szoboszlai commits a holding offence that denies an obvious goal-scoring opportunity. The final decision is a direct free-kick to Manchester City and a red card.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liverpool&#8217;s Dominik Szoboszlai walks down the tunnel after being sent off Manchester City\u2019s crucial victory over Liverpool ended&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,5859,8579,112],"class_list":["post-288001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-liverpool-football-club","tag-manchester-city","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}