One decision stands above everything else from this weekend.
Erling Haaland scored the only goal of the Manchester derby. The assistant referee ruled it out. VAR overturned that decision and Manchester City won 1-0.
By Sunday night, the refereeing body responsible for the Premier League had acknowledged that VAR got it wrong.
That alone would have made this a significant weekend for video refereeing. But it was not the only argument. Arsenal were furious about a penalty awarded to Sunderland, Augsburg's coach deliberately made a scene to draw attention to an incident VAR eventually corrected, and Monaco were left asking why an apparent penalty did not even produce an on-field review.
These are the decisions worth another look.
Manchester United 0-1 Manchester City: VAR corrected the offside and still got the goal wrong
The biggest VAR controversy of the weekend came in the Manchester derby, and this time there is no need to frame the final decision as a matter of opinion.
The officials have acknowledged the error.
Erling Haaland scored for Manchester City in the 60th minute at Old Trafford, but the assistant referee raised the flag for offside.
VAR Matt Donohue checked Haaland's position and found that the striker himself was onside. The original offside decision was therefore overturned and the goal was awarded.
That was only half of the problem.
Enzo Fernandez was in an offside position as the attack developed. He attempted to play the cross before it reached Haaland, without actually touching the ball.
VAR considered the absence of a touch and allowed the goal.
What it failed to properly assess was whether Fernandez had interfered with an opponent while offside.
Pro Ref, the body responsible for Premier League refereeing, subsequently acknowledged an "error of judgement". The incident should have been treated as a subjective offside question and referee Michael Oliver should have been sent to the monitor.
VAR Donohue and assistant VAR Blake Antrobus were then left without Premier League appointments for the following round.
That makes this fundamentally different from most VAR controversies.
There is often room to argue about whether contact was sufficient for a penalty or whether an intervention threshold was met. Here, the organisation responsible for the officials has accepted that the process failed.
The most striking part is that VAR successfully corrected one element of the decision.
Haaland was onside.
But establishing that fact was not enough. VAR still needed to consider what the offside Fernandez was doing.
It did not do that correctly.
Confirmed: Haaland was initially ruled offside, VAR established that he was onside and awarded the goal. Pro Ref later acknowledged that Fernandez's involvement had not been properly considered and that an on-field review should have taken place.
No longer merely disputed: the refereeing body has acknowledged that the VAR decision was an error.
For more on why an offside player does not necessarily need to touch the ball to commit an offence, read the VarVote guide to VAR and the Laws behind video review.
The same derby also produced a red card VAR backed
The Haaland mistake should not obscure another major video check in the same match.
Manchester City had already been reduced to ten men.
Phil Foden was sent off in the 23rd minute after making contact with Bruno Fernandes.
Referee Michael Oliver judged Foden's action to be violent conduct. VAR reviewed the incident and agreed, identifying a secondary movement by Foden and confirming the straight red card.
Unlike the Haaland goal, there has been no official acknowledgement that this decision was incorrect.
That contrast matters.
Two major decisions in the same match went through VAR. One was checked and supported. The other was overturned by VAR and later acknowledged as an error.
It is tempting after a match like this to describe the entire system as having failed. The more useful question is narrower.
Why did a review capable of analysing Haaland's position precisely fail to properly evaluate the offside player's effect on the defenders around him?
That is a human interpretation problem, not a failure of the offside technology itself.
Confirmed: Foden received a straight red card for violent conduct and VAR supported the on-field decision.
Sunderland 0-2 Arsenal: was Ezri Konsa really holding Dan Ballard?
Arsenal won at Sunderland, but Mikel Arteta left the Stadium of Light talking about a penalty his goalkeeper had saved.
In the 54th minute, referee John Brooks penalised Ezri Konsa for holding Dan Ballard at a corner.
VAR checked the decision and backed the referee.
The official explanation was straightforward: Brooks believed Konsa was holding Ballard while facing away from the ball, and VAR agreed that the holding offence was sufficient to support the penalty.
Arteta saw something very different.
His argument was that Ballard had first pulled Konsa and that the Arsenal defender was effectively being penalised for the consequence of that initial contact.
Enzo Le Fee took the penalty, but David Raya saved it.
The miss prevented the decision from changing the score. It did not end the controversy. Arsenal subsequently sought further clarification from Pro Ref over the call.
This is exactly the kind of incident where VAR's high intervention threshold becomes important.
VAR did not have to decide whether it would have awarded the penalty itself. Once Brooks had given it, the question was whether the decision was clearly wrong.
The video officials decided it was not.
Former referees and observers have disagreed over that assessment, particularly over who initiated the holding.
That makes the incident different from Haaland's goal.
Confirmed: Brooks awarded Sunderland a penalty for Konsa's hold on Ballard and VAR confirmed the decision. Raya saved Le Fee's kick.
Disputed: whether Ballard's actions before Konsa's hold meant the penalty should never have been awarded.
There was another late penalty in the same match when Reinildo Mandava challenged Bukayo Saka. Arsenal were awarded the spot kick and Reinildo received a second yellow card. VAR confirmed both the foul and sanction, with the officials judging that Reinildo had made a genuine attempt to play the ball while denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity.
The episode is also a useful reminder that VAR can now review a clearly incorrect second yellow when that caution results in a dismissal. VarVote has previously examined the Premier League's expanded VAR powers for second-yellow red cards.
Augsburg 2-2 Bayer Leverkusen: did a manager have to force VAR to look?
One of the weekend's most revealing VAR stories happened in Germany.
Bayer Leverkusen appeared to have equalised against Augsburg around the hour mark through Ibrahim Maza.
The goal initially stood.
Augsburg coach Manuel Baum had spotted something earlier in the sequence. Before the corner that led to the goal, Jarell Quansah had pushed Hennes Behrens to the ground.
Baum reacted furiously on the touchline and received a yellow card.
VAR subsequently sent referee Daniel Siebert to the monitor. After reviewing the incident, Siebert overturned the goal for Quansah's foul.
So far, this looks like VAR doing precisely what it is designed to do.
The more interesting part came afterwards.
Baum admitted that his dramatic protest had been deliberate. His concern was that because the incident happened before the corner was taken, nobody would look closely enough at it.
He stopped short of claiming that his behaviour actually caused the VAR review.
That distinction is important. There is no evidence that VAR intervened because Baum protested.
But the episode exposes an awkward perception problem.
Managers should not need to perform for the fourth official to persuade video officials to examine something. VAR either has jurisdiction over an incident and sufficient evidence to intervene, or it does not.
In this case the correct review happened.
Yet Baum's explanation tells us something about how little confidence people inside the game sometimes have that the system will find the incident without encouragement.
Confirmed: Leverkusen's apparent goal was initially awarded before VAR recommended an on-field review. Siebert then disallowed it for Quansah's earlier foul.
Worth debating: not whether the final decision was correct, but whether coaches believe exaggerated protests can influence what receives scrutiny.
Strasbourg 1-1 Monaco: the non-intervention that Filipe Luis could not understand
Sometimes the biggest VAR question is why the referee never reaches the monitor.
Monaco were drawing 1-1 at Strasbourg when substitute Matthis Abline went down inside the penalty area late in the match after contact involving Jeyland Mitchell.
Referee Eric Wattellier did not award a penalty.
VAR Nicolas Rainville checked the incident but did not recommend an on-field review.
The decision stood.
Monaco coach Filipe Luis was unequivocal afterwards. Having watched the incident again, he said he had no doubt about what he believed the decision should have been and questioned why Wattellier had not been given the opportunity to review it himself.
That does not establish that Monaco were denied a penalty.
It establishes something more familiar.
The referee made a subjective decision on the field and VAR decided the evidence did not justify overturning it.
This is where supporters often misunderstand what a completed VAR check means.
"No intervention" does not necessarily mean the video assistant believes the original decision was perfect. It means the VAR did not identify an error clear enough to justify sending the referee to the monitor.
That distinction is central to modern VAR.
It is also one of the reasons the system remains so controversial.
A viewer can reasonably believe an incident was a penalty while VAR can simultaneously decide that not awarding one was not clearly and obviously wrong.
Confirmed: Monaco appealed for a late penalty, Wattellier did not award one and the VAR check did not lead to an on-field review.
Disputed: whether the contact on Abline should have been penalised.
Leeds 4-1 Newcastle: when a handball check ends quickly
Monday night's Premier League match offered a quieter example of the same principle.
Only two minutes into Leeds against Newcastle, the ball bounced up and struck Matias Fernandez-Pardo's hand inside the penalty area following a corner.
No penalty was given.
VAR checked the incident and supported the on-field decision.
The officials considered the contact inadvertent after the ball bounced into the defender's arm.
There was no monitor review and no overturn.
This was not the weekend's biggest controversy, but it is useful context after the arguments at Old Trafford and Sunderland.
Not every ball-to-hand contact is a handball offence.
Not every VAR check needs to become an intervention.
And not every review needs to dominate the match.
Confirmed: the referee allowed play to continue and VAR confirmed the no-penalty decision.
What did this weekend actually tell us about VAR?
The Manchester derby is the obvious headline.
VAR did not merely fail to correct an error. It overturned the assistant referee's decision and replaced it with a decision the refereeing body later acknowledged was wrong.
That deserves scrutiny.
But treating every other incident as another version of the same failure would miss the more interesting pattern.
At Sunderland, VAR saw enough evidence to support a subjective holding penalty that Arsenal strongly disputed.
At Augsburg, VAR found an earlier foul and correctly removed a goal.
At Strasbourg, VAR examined Monaco's penalty appeal and decided the threshold for intervention had not been reached.
At Leeds, a handball check ended with the original no-penalty decision intact.
Five situations. Five different functions of the same system.
The most important lesson from Old Trafford may therefore have little to do with whether semi-automated offside technology works.
It did work. It established that Haaland himself was onside.
The mistake came afterwards, when human officials had to interpret the involvement of another player.
That distinction matters because it identifies where VAR remains most vulnerable.
Technology is increasingly good at answering factual questions.
Football still has to answer the subjective ones.
And no camera can remove judgement from the Laws of the Game.
Browse recent VAR decisions on VarVote or read the VarVote guide to how VAR works.