Why Man City's crucial second goal vs Fulham should have been overturned

VAR has been slammed as 'really poor' by a former Premier League referee after Nathan Ake's Manchester City goal against Fulham stood on Saturday.

City had taken the lead through Julian Alvarez but were pegged back by two minutes later through Tim Ream. The two teams looked to be heading into the break level until Ake powered home a header.

Immediately, Fulham's players and staff were furious with the officials as Manuel Akanji appeared to be blocking the sight of goalkeeper Bernd Leno from an offside position. After review, the decision was made to award the goal to City and from there they did not look back.

A second half Erling Haaland hat-trick won the match for City as they kept their 100 per cent start to the season. However, on Sky Sports' Ref Watch, Dermot Gallagher criticised the officiating at the Etihad Stadium.

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He explained: "I was actually watching this game live and the minute it went in I turned to the guy next to me and said: 'This could be given as offside'. I saw one replay from behind the goal and I didn't have to see any more.

"He [Akanji] is offside twice as you can see from the replay behind the goal, he is clearly in front of the goalkeeper, he clearly goes to play the ball. It is just a really poor decision by the VAR.

"I feel for the referee and I feel for the assistants because if you look at it, Michael Oliver is on the edge of the box, he has got a lot of players in between him [and Akanji] and he cannot be 100 per cent sure. If you look at the assistant, he can tell he is in an offside position which isn't an offence in of itself but he does not know the distance between him [Akanji] and the goalkeeper.

"You see that angle from