Manchester United were the beneficiaries of a controversial offside decision that could be outlawed next season, affecting Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur.

The Red Devils defeated Coventry City 4-2 on penalties after a thrilling 3-3 draw in the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley on Sunday. Erik ten Hag's side were cruising at 3-0 thanks to goals from Scott McTominay, Harry Maguire and Bruno Fernandes before Coventry staged a remarkable comeback.

Ellis Simms, Callum O'Hare and Haji Wright all found the net before Victor Torp looked to have won it for the Sky Blues in the 121st minute. The Sky Blues' substitute converted from Wright's cross, but VAR ruled it out for offside against the American in the build-up, much to the disappointment of the Coventry fans.

Wright was fractionally ahead of Aaron Wan-Bissaka, the last United defender, when O'Hare played the ball through. It proved to be a heartbreaking moment for Coventry, who subsequently lost the penalty shootout after Andre Onana saved from O'Hare and Ben Sheaf blazed over the bar.

"We deserved to go through, we were 20 seconds away and a toenail offside, it's ridiculous," said Coventry boss Mark Robins. "Had he [Haji Wright] cut his toenail, it wouldn't have gone to penalties."

The PGMOL have defended the offside decision amid a backlash led by Coventry fans, who have claimed it was wrong because the line was not drawn correctly from Wan-Bissaka's foot. The disappointment is understandable from the defeated Championship side and they might not want to hear that they could have gone through to face Manchester City in the final had next season's technology been in place already.

At present, VAR utilises Hawk-Eye technology to judge offsides: the VAR manually selects the point on the last defender and the attacker for the lines to be drawn automatically. However, changes are coming next season, with the Premier League adopting semi-automated offside technology (SAOT), which has been used at the Qatar World Cup as well as in the Champions League and Serie A, at some point in the 2024/25 season, depending on when the contracts get sorted.

SAOT will use 12 dedicated tracking cameras to follow the ball and all 22 players 50 times per second. This detailed data will be used to automatically generate an offside line every time the ball is played, which will be overlaid on the live broadcast feed.

The PGMOL claims that SAOT will be faster and more accurate than the current system, which relies on VAR officials manually drawing off-side lines. Earlier in April, the Premier League announced that its clubs had voted through the change, which will also see SAOT used in the FA Cup at Premier League grounds and at Wembley.

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