Wasn't punished: VAR may have made big Newcastle error after Man City footage - opinion

Newcastle United supporters will be furious to see this previously unmentioned footage in the build-up to the second goal they conceded.

It’s been a tough week for Newcastle United who have had to face Liverpool and Manchester City in back to back games with the Magpies unsurprisingly coming away with zero points while also seeing their goal difference get six worse.

Eddie Howe’s side did have a great chance to take the lead through Chris Wood only for the New Zealand international to let the ball hit his head instead of attacking it from less than six yards out making the save a simple one for Ederson.

Their misery was further compounded when they went in at half-time 2-0 down, although footage has emerged of Gabriel Jesus sending Matt Targett to the floor just before Ilkay Gundogan had a shot which lead to City’s second goal and VAR decided to not interfere with the incident.

TIF Thoughts on this missed incident…

From the footage and image above, it appears quite clear that Jesus takes a look at Targett, who was closing down Gundogan’s shot, before stepping in his way and thus sending the Newcastle defender tumbling to the ground.

This falls foul of an FA rule under ‘IMPEDING THE PROGRESS OF AN OPPONENT WITHOUT CONTACT’ which states that ‘Impeding the progress of an opponent means moving into the opponent’s path to obstruct, block, slow down or force a change of direction when the ball is not within playing distance of either player.’

It is a tough enough ask for any team to go away to the Etihad and pick up a positive result without decisions like this going against them, so while Newcastle may have gone on to lose the game, it will surely leave a bitter taste in supporter’s mouths when they see what VAR decided to