It took City until the 98th minute to get the equaliser, with Stones coming off the bench to salvage a point at the Etihad. However, after the goal, Haaland was spotted cheekily bouncing the ball off of Gabriel’s head before running off to celebrate with his team – and Neville is convinced he could’ve been sent off.
On The Overlap US podcast, former referee Christina Unkel admitted she was surprised that there was no further action for Haaland after his ball-throwing incident, given that VAR was involved right after the goal but decided not to intervene.
Neville said: “I actually agree with you Christina. Obviously we were commentating and weren’t doing our jobs very well because we didn’t see it at the time! But the fact of the matter is that, as a football player – and this is not something that would be a rule in 2024, it would be a rule in 2014 or 2004 or whatever – if I threw the ball at Carra’s head directly from what would be a few metres away in a game, I think I would be red carded.
“I think I would accept that that would be a red card if you purposely throw the ball at someone a couple of metres away – as much as me and Carra laughed at before when we saw it because it’s quite funny – the fact of the matter is it is a red card in football.”
Jamie Carragher, who also appeared on the podcast, wasn’t so sure and asked: “Is that a red card? It’s maybe a yellow.”
Neville was adamant, however, as he added: “I think if you throw the ball at someone’s head purposely, I think you’re asking for a red card and we would be saying how stupid can you be to do that and we would have said that there’s no leg to stand on. I think I can see why it would have been a red card.”
Nevertheless, Haaland received no further sanctioning for this incident and will be available for City’s trip to St. James’ Park to take on Newcastle United this Saturday. He’ll also be looking ahead to City’s second Champions League fixture of the season against Slovan Bratislava next week.
