Premier League make Newcastle United & Man Utd official decision after 'major blunder'

The Premier League match officials have been confirmed for Newcastle United v Manchester United on Saturday (8pm kick-off) at St James' Park.

Robert Jones will referee the big match on Tyneside this weekend. Jones' last match officiating Newcastle came in the 1-0 defeat against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium in August.

Jones' last visit to St James' Park came back in January as The Magpies beat Fulham 1-0. Jones awarded Fulham a penalty in the second half which the referee disallowed with a VAR check deeming the ball had hit Aleksandar Mitrovic twice before finding the net. Alexander Isak went on to score a late winner for The Magpies.

Jones will be assisted by Lee Betts and Timothy Wood with Graham Scott as fourth official. Michael Salisbury will be the VAR for the match, assisted by Ian Hussin.

The name Michael Salisbury may ring some bells for Newcastle supporters as he was at the centre of one of the biggest VAR blunders from last season involving Newcastle. In September 2022, Newcastle thought they'd opened the scoring against Crystal Palace with Tyrick Mitchell putting the ball into his own net.

But a VAR intervention from Lee Mason prompted Salisbury to rule out the goal due to a foul by Joe Willock on Palace goalkeeper Vicente Guaita. Replays showed that Willock was in fact pushed into Guaita by Mitchell and PGMOL later released a statement suggesting an error was made.

Mason was dropped for subsequent game weeks while Salisbury was moved to VAR duty.