Former Chelsea and Blackburn Rovers striker Chris Sutton agreed with Guardiola and Silva and said Kavanagh’s verdict looked like a “sheer guess”.

“I think the game has gone,” added Sutton. “Is Thiaw really going to stop that? The distance from Semenyo is a yard, a yard and a half. Thiaw is not going to react to that.”

Ex-Liverpool and England midfielder Jamie Redknapp and Newcastle defender Dan Burn said it was the correct call to rule out Semenyo’s effort, though both criticised the process.

“If they had given the goal there wouldn’t be one person that looked at this and thought it shouldn’t have been allowed,” said Redknapp.

“But by the letter of the law, whether we like it or not, it is the right decision.”

Meanwhile, Burn, who missed the game through injury, added: “I do think it is the right decision, I just don’t like the subjective offside. It’s either offside, or it’s not.

“We don’t want to see that, but by the letter of the law it should be disallowed.”

Former Manchester City defender Micah Richards said: “I understand the process but VAR wasn’t brought in for this reason here.

“This is anti-goal which they said they weren’t going to do, they said they weren’t going to re-referee the game.

“This for me is re-refereeing the game. They are both going at it. It might be right, but I don’t think we should be taking away goals for this. Why take five minutes?”