• Andy Davies, Special to ESPN

Nov 3, 2025, 09:10 AM

The Video Assistant Referee causes controversy every week in the Premier League, but how are decisions made and are they correct?

This season, we take a look at the major incidents to examine and explain the process both in terms of the VAR protocol and the Laws of the Game.

Andy Davies (@andydaviesref) is a former Select Group referee, with over 12 seasons on the elite list, working across the Premier League and Championship. With extensive experience at the elite level, he has operated within the VAR space in the Premier League and offers a unique insight into the processes, rationale and protocols that are delivered on a Premier League matchday.

Nottingham Forest 2-2 Manchester United

Referee: Darren England
Assistant referee: Akil Howson
VAR: Tim Robinson
Incident: Corner awarded after a ball appears to leave field of play
Time: 33 minutes

What happened: Nottingham Forest defender Nicolò Savona headed clear from a Bryan Mbeumo cross. With the ball running towards the corner flag and seemingly out of play, Savona appeared to have made up enough ground to keep the ball in. Assistant referee Howson disagreed, however, and awarded a corner kick in United’s favor from the opposite side of the pitch, much to the displeasure of the Forest players and supporters at that end of the City Ground. The resulting corner kick, almost inevitably, ended with the ball in the back of the Forest net, as United’s Casemiro scored from a header.

Decision review: Law 9 of the game states that the ball is out of play “when it has wholly passed over the goal line/touchline.” The ball being out of play should be judged on factual information and, unfortunately on this occasion, the footage confirms that it was indeed still in play. Furthermore, the assistant’s decision was made from the other side of the pitch, and his view was partially obstructed by the goalposts and players’ bodies.

VAR: This is an area that VAR is unable to review under the current protocols. Forest will feel aggrieved, given they have had two incorrect corners awarded against them in as many weeks, which both resulted in goals against them. Though in my opinion, the corner awarded against them last weekend at Bournemouth was an understandable mis-read of the situation in real time.

At the latest IFAB meeting, it was decided not to introduce possible VAR reviews for incorrectly awarded corners which lead to a goal. So for now, Forest boss Sean Dyche’s frustrations over the incident will go unheard.

Verdict: If Casemiro doesn’t score from the resulting corner then this moment would have been forgotten. But it’s clear that assistant referee Howson did not have definitive information to make the call, given the positional circumstances of both the ball and himself. A ball out of play decision should be a factual one by any match official, and there was no need for Howson to force this for many reasons. In decisions that require full factual information which are not available in the moment, the advice would be to do nothing.