Gary Neville tackles the controversy after Nottingham Forest 1 Newcastle 2 | OneFootball

Gary Neville was on duty on Friday night.

Sky Sports covering the Nottingham Forest v Newcastle United match.

Plenty to talk about for sure.

An excellent Newcastle United performance and a very deserved win, though leaving it oh so late to get that winning goal.

As well as so many positives for Eddie Howe and his team, there were two big negatives.

Negatives which would have been very tough to deal with if NUFC hadn’t left with all three points.

The first was the absolute gift of a goal, Sven Botman has been absolute class this season but maybe it was because Newcastle were so much on top, he played a routine pass back to Nick Pope without checking for any potential danger. To his credit, Dennis had gambled on a one in a thousand chance and Botman delivered it, the Forest forward running onto the backpass and supplying a great finish.

These things happen though in football, players are human and make errors.

No excuse though for the second negative on Friday night and this one does need to be talked about…a lot!

Between them, the VAR officials and the referee, managing to find a reason not to give Elliot Anderson’s superb headed goal, midway through the second half.

Gary Neville talking after the game about it on Sky Sports:

“Sean Longstaff is an offside position.

“The ball gets played across BUT it gets played across by a Nottingham Forest defender, Felipe, so I’m thinking – that’s not offside.

“It is a brilliant goal, Anderson’s header is absolutely wonderful.

“However…the judgement here is that Felipe has not played that ball deliberately, instead he has [supposdly] deflected it.

“I don’t get that at all.

“For me he has definitely played the ball.

“I have been there many times as a defender, where I have tried to clear it and it has not quite gone where I have wanted it to.

“I am a little bit bemused…

“There might be much cleverer people than me, who can explain why that is a deflection and not a deliberate play of the ball.

“I am for VAR and I think it [VAR] gets 90% correct.

“We always focus on the one that isn’t [correct], this one tonight though is bizarre.

“In some ways I am glad Newcastle have won because it takes the edge off it for everybody, including the officials.

“If that had been 1-1 then Eddie Howe would have been absolutely fuming.”

As Gary Neville explains, after that lengthy delay, VAR and the referee managing to come up with a decision where they honestly believed the Forest defender ‘deflected’ the ball, rather than playing the ball.

Absolutely ridiculous, Felipe did play the ball, he was desperately trying to clear the danger and instead played the ball against Longstaff.

During the lengthy stoppage you were thinking how on earth have they found a problem here and then as soon as the referee is directed to go and look at the screen, you know for sure he won’t be making his own mind up and going against the VAR official.

It all felt like a number of previous occasions when watching on TV the team Gary Neville supports, the opposition scoring against Man U and then VAR looking and looking to try and find some bizarre reason to disallow a goal.

Goals:

Newcastle United:

Isak 45+2, 90+3 pen

Forest:

Dennis 26

(Half-time stats in brackets)

Possession was Forest 39% (47%) Newcastle 61% (53%)

Total shots were Forest 5 (2) Newcastle 15 (6)

Shots on target were Forest 3 (2) Newcastle 4 (1)

Corners were Forest 3 (1) Newcastle 7 (2)

Referee: Paul Tierney

Attendance: 29,362 (Newcastle 2,900)

Newcastle United: