Thierno Barry and the offside law: How was goal allowed to stand after Marc Guehi error?
Barry was waiting on Guehi’s shoulder, weighing up when to make his move as Rohl made a through pass.
The German midfielder’s pass directly to the feet of the Manchester City defender was not very good.
Barry was not putting pressure on his opponent as he began to advance towards Guehi. Inexplicably, Guehi hit a back pass that Barry latched on to score.
Barry was offside and the assistant initially prevented the goal by raising his flag but it was quickly denied by Oliver.
The law asks several important questions: Did Barry do anything that might have caused Guehi to rush or affect his poor pass?
Barry moved towards the ball but did that really affect Guehi?
But did Guehi have a full expectation that handling the ball would produce a controlled result?
Former Manchester City and Everton defender Andy Hinchcliffe told Sky Sports: “Barry is in an offside position when the ball is handled but it’s in Guehi’s hands.”
“He’s in control of his movements, so suddenly the attacker goes from offside to offside. That’s why the goal stays correct. For Guehi, it’s a complete disaster.”
Without these subjective assessments, you would have to penalize every player just for being in an offside position, even if they were not close to the opponent.
Guehi’s crash is one of the most blatant examples of pure defensive bluster and should clearly cancel out any offside.
But we have also seen much more controversial ones, such as Bruno Fernandes’ goal in the Manchester derby three years ago.
Marcus Rashford, who was in an offside position, ran after the ball but did not touch it and Fernandes came from behind and scored the goal.
Everton also have previous experience.
In April last year, Liverpool’s Luis Diaz was found to be offside behind James Tarkowski as the centre-back tried to catch a loose ball. This resulted in Diogo Jota scoring the winning goal for the Arne Slot team.
Some oppose this rule because, as in these two situations, it can inadvertently disadvantage defenders who know there is an opponent nearby but do not know they are offside.
In Tarkowski’s situation, would he have acted differently if Diaz hadn’t been there?
It’s not something you can easily fix. You need to make offside completely binary and more goals will be scored.
