Leicester City manager Ruud van Nistelrooy expressed his frustration with the FA Cup officials after his side was defeated by a controversial stoppage-time winner from Manchester United’s Harry Maguire on Friday night.
Ruben Amorim, Van Nistelrooy’s counterpart at United, could only agree with the irate Dutchman.
Leicester took a first-half lead in their fourth-round clash at Old Trafford, with Joshua Zirkzee equalizing after the break. The match was tied at 1-1 as it entered the third and final minute of added time. Maguire then hammered a free-kick from Bruno Fernandes into the bottom corner to snatch a late, and arguably undeserved, victory for the hosts. However, replays showed that the centre-back had been offside.
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Since VAR isn’t introduced in the FA Cup until the fifth round, the on-field decision stood, much to Van Nistelrooy’s displeasure.
“We weren’t defeated in Fergie time,” the former United striker told ITV Sport, referring to the iconic late winners under Sir Alex Ferguson. “We were defeated in ‘offside time.’ This wasn’t necessary.
“VAR is used for an offside by a couple of centimetres, inches. This was half a metre, clear and in line. It’s hard to accept because the team deserved the draw.
“With extra time, if you stay in the game, you never know what can happen. It was a really good team performance. We started well, pressing United and being stable on the ball. We deserved to be 1-0 up at half-time.
“Of course, we knew there would be pressure in the second half and some chances, but not many. So, we deserved to go into extra time and battle for penalties. Decisions like this, at our level, are hard to accept.”
In his own post-match comments, Amorim, unprompted by the BBC interviewer, admitted: “The goal was offside. We should have VAR. VAR should be here to overturn the decision. This is hard on the opponent, hard on Ruud.”
Despite failing to register a shot on target in a lackluster first half, United improved after the introduction of Alejandro Garnacho in the second half. However, Amorim conceded that his team had been “poor” and “need to improve.”