‘Offside time’ goal upsets Nistelrooy to no end as Leicester are dumped out of the FA Cup in the 4th round.
‘Offside time’ goal by Harry Maguire leaves Van Nistelrooy incensed.
After Harry Maguire’s goal for Manchester United in the 93rd minute was declared legitimate, removing his team from the FA Cup, an angry Ruud van Nistelrooy declared that Leicester had lost “in offside time” rather than “in Fergie time.” Maguire’s winner was not written off even though the assistant referee was well in line to see that he had infringed since there was no video assistant referee present until the next round of the competition.
“We are not defeated in Fergie time, we are defeated in offside time,” said Van Nistelrooy, referring to the extra minutes opponents claimed were allocated to United when needed under Sir Alex Ferguson, the Dutchman’s manager at Old Trafford. “It is a hard one to take because the game was decided on a mistake, that is clear. It is not a matter of VAR, where you have to look at millimetres. It is half a metre, it is clear. The team didn’t deserve to lose the game in this way. They fought, played well, and dominated the game for a long bit.”
Van Nistelrooy was asked if VAR should be used from the third round onwards when possible. “Let me think about that question,” he said.
Van Nistelrooy was curt when asked if being knocked out was a blow. “That is not a question for me,” he said. “We want to die on the pitch today, to get to the next round, to be the best we can be, to be competitive, we are representing ourselves on the pitch at Old Trafford.”
Ruben Amorim was visibly disappointed at United’s poor performance. “We had to believe until the end but this game has nothing to do with the time of Fergie,” he said.