‘Door is open’ to offside chaos
Football was warned last night that the “door is open” for teams to abuse the offside law.
Southampton’s Ralph Hasenhuttl became the first top-flight manager to cite the “opportunities” presented by players being able to dispossess an unsuspecting opponent while retreating from an offside position, after Manchester City ’s hotly disputed opener against Aston Villa on Wednesday night. Villa manager Dean Smith was yesterday charged by the Football Association after being sent off for angrily protesting against the goal, which he had branded “farcical” and called for the matter to be “looked at”.
But the Premier League have no plans to lobby for a change to the laws of the game under which it was
allowed to stand, laws Hasenhuttl admitted he had also been unaware of. The move that led to City’s opener began when Villa defender Tyrone Mings intercepted a forward pass while Rodri was jogging back from an offside position only to be immediately dispossessed by the midfielder.
Hasenhuttl said: “I don’t understand the rule, to be honest. It doesn’t make sense when you take it under control and he’s coming closer. When you have three seconds to play it out but he was there and he took [the ball], this is a clear offside to me. I do not know that this rule exists like this. And it gives you opportunities.
“A deliberate touch is the key. When you let it run and let it run back, normally you shouldn’t have to stop it any more because when you stop, you can get attacked. So I don’t see the reason why we have such a rule. But OK, like always, when you see that something is possible then you will immediately take it and try to adapt the game on this because now the door is open.”
Refereeing body Professional Game Match Officials Ltd said the goal had been allowed under a littleknown law that reads: “A player in an offside position receiving the ball from an opponent who deliberately plays the ball, including by deliberate handball, is not considered to have gained an advantage, unless it was a deliberate save by any opponent.”
Mings branded the law “nonsense”, while centre-back partner Ezri Konsa said he and his teammates would adjust the way they play to prevent a repeat.
“None of us knew that was a rule,” Konsa said. “Now we are aware of that, we won’t do it in the future. We all believed he was offside and were very frustrated with that decision.”
PGMOL has previously lobbied the game’s lawmakers, the International Football Association Board, to change laws with which it disagrees, but it had no plans last night to do the same over that which allowed City’s goal to stand.