Manchester City won Sunday’s derby 1-0 through Erling Haaland‘s 60th-minute goal. A day later, the body that governs English referees admitted the goal should not have stood — and apologised to Manchester United.
The part that interests us is what happens next: in Fantasy Premier League, the points from that goal stay exactly where they are. 72% of managers have them.
What happened
City played from the first half with ten men — Phil Foden was sent off. Despite the advantage, United could not convert it, and on 60 minutes Haaland turned in a cross from Joško Gvardiol.
The assistant referee raised his flag for offside. VAR overturned it: video official Matthew Donohue and assistant Blake Antrobus judged that Enzo Fernández, standing in an offside position, had not touched the ball and was therefore not interfering with play.
Why it was wrong
The offside law is not only about touching the ball. Under IFAB’s wording, a player in an offside position is also penalised when they are clearly attempting to play a ball which is close, and that action impacts on an opponent.
That is exactly what occurred: Fernández dived in with his head, which directly affected Lisandro Martínez. The United defender was reacting to that movement — without the dive, he could have cleared the ball or picked up Haaland.
In its statement the refereeing body accepted that “the VAR did not recognise the likely impact of his position and should have recommended an on-field review”, calling it “an error of judgement”. The incident has gone to review and the club was contacted directly.
United manager Michael Carrick called the decision “staggering” and “worrying”, while Lisandro Martínez spoke of an “injustice”.
In FPL the points stay. And that is a real issue
Here is the part you will not find in the match reports. Fantasy Premier League does not take points back after referees admit a mistake. The goal is in the system, the bonus has been allocated, the league tables are already recalculated.
From that one goal:
| Player | Gameweek points | From | Ownership |
|---|---|---|---|
| Haaland | 9 | goal + 3 bonus | 72.0% |
| Gvardiol | 11 | assist + clean sheet + 3 bonus | 21.6% |
Had the goal been disallowed, Haaland would have taken two points for minutes played — forwards earn nothing for a clean sheet. Instead he has nine, and anyone who captained him banked eighteen. Gvardiol would have lost the assist and almost certainly the bonus with it.
This is not a complaint about the game. Points cannot be recalculated after every refereeing correction, or tables would keep shifting for weeks. But it is worth knowing how the mechanics work: a mistake at the monitor stays in your score permanently.
What it means for our pre-match calls
On Friday we wrote that Haaland and Bruno Fernandes had drawn each other in the hardest fixture of the round, which is why our model ranked them only seventh and eighth among captaincy options. Settling that honestly:
- Bruno Fernandes — 2 points. Here the argument held. Same for Mbeumo (2 points) and United’s attack as a whole.
- Haaland — 9 points. Here it did not, though with an asterisk: the goal came from a phase that should not have counted, against ten men.
- Luke Shaw — 0 minutes. On Saturday we flagged his fitness test. He did not appear at all.
- O’Reilly — 8 minutes. Here we were wrong the other way: his flag was lifted on Friday and he still only got the closing stages. He is owned by 12.8%.
The best pick from this match was Gvardiol at £5.6m — 11 points at 21.6% ownership, more than Haaland returned at £15.5m.
The rest of Sunday: five for Brighton
Earlier in the day Brighton won 5-0 away at Coventry. The best score of the gameweek belongs to Pascal Groß — 17 points (goal, two assists, three bonus) at 17.2% ownership, with Dunk (12), De Cuyper (11 at 22.8%) and Verbruggen’s clean sheet (8) behind him.
After nine of ten matches the global average is 63 points and the highest score is 142. Leeds v Newcastle closes the round tonight at 20:00 — our full review, with the mini league table, follows after that game.
What to take from it
The practical lesson is simple and uncomfortable: you cannot factor the referee into a captaincy call. Our model weighs minutes, underlying numbers and fixture difficulty — it will not predict a red card on 30 minutes or an error at the monitor on 60.
It cuts both ways. This week a contested decision helped most of the league, because almost three quarters of managers own Haaland. Next time it may cost you — and nobody will hand those points back either.
Current ratings for every player are in the AI Rankings, and next week’s side in the Recommended Squad. To compare your score with other readers, join our mini league — code 3ix1cw.
The refereeing body’s statement and the sequence of events are based on ESPN and NBC Sports reporting from 13-14 September. Points and ownership come from official game data read on the morning of 14 September; bonus may still change while the gameweek is unfinished. This article was produced with the help of artificial intelligence, using our own engine’s data and the official Fantasy Premier League API.