What Watford can’t do but Manchester City and Haaland can.
You can do it if you’re Erling Haaland, but not if you’re Kwadwo Baah, or so it seems.
When Watford were trailing 1-0 at Manchester City in their Carabao Cup tie at the Etihad on Tuesday night, Watford’s young forward scored what his head coach, Tom Cleverley, described as “a perfectly good goal” in the 21st minute.
Baah surged in the box, used his shoulder to muscle City’s young debutant defender Kaden Braithwate to one side, and then hammered a shot past keeper Stefan Ortega from a narrow angle.
There were no appeals for a foul from any of the City players, yet referee David Webb disallowed the goal, even though he was almost 20 yards away and his assistant – who was in line with play – did not signal for a foul.
It was exactly the sort of goal that City’s own talisman, Haaland, has made a trademark of his game which has helped him to score 100 goals for the club in only 105 games.
Indeed, Watford FC’s own official TikTok account placed two videos next to each other, one of Baah’s disallowed goal and one that Haaland scored against Brighton that was deemed acceptable.
Two very similar challenges in the same stadium – one ruled out, the other given as a goal.
Even the Sky Sports commentator at the game on Tuesday night described the Baah goal as “superb play” and seemed baffled that it was ruled out.
Meanwhile, former Southampton and England midfielder Matt Le Tissier used his Twitter account to question why Baah’s strike had been disallowed by the officials.
After the game, Cleverley expressed his disappointment that the goal had not stood, especially as it would have made the game 1-1, but stopped short of saying he felt it would have been allowed had City scored it.
Even Baah himself posted on Twitter about his ‘goal’ that never was.
Watford ended up going 2-0 down shortly after, but rallied with a late goal from Tom Ince but it wasn’t to take the game to penalties.
It was, though, Watford’s best result at the Etihad Stadium since 2016, as they have generally been soundly beaten there, including an 8-0 defeat in 2019.
