New angle shows Cristiano Ronaldo's goal against Newcastle should have stood

New angle shows Cristiano Ronaldo's disallowed goal for Manchester United against Newcastle on Sunday should have stood.

Ronaldo had two goals chalked off in quick succession in the 0-0 draw at Old Trafford, the first coming when he was correctly flagged offside as he linked up with Jadon Sancho and rolled the ball in with his left foot.

However, controversy followed seconds later following the subsequent free-kick awarded to Newcastle.

Fabian Schar touched the ball back to Nick Pope and Ronaldo felt as though the free-kick had been taken and so decided to nip in and slot into an empty net.

He and his United teammates immediately raged at the referee for disallowing the strike, with Ronaldo booked for the way in which he protested the decision.

Footage from the stands posted online shows that Craig Pawson, the man in the middle, had blown the whistle before Ronaldo intervened.

United also had two penalty appeals waved away in the stalemate, one on Ronaldo and one on Jadon Sancho.

Afterwards, Erik ten Hag refused to discuss the disallowed Ronaldo strike, saying: "I don't have a comment, everyone has seen it.

"I shared that with them (the officials). Everyone has seen what happened today on the pitch."

From a Newcastle perspective though, the ball was not in play when Ronaldo tried his luck.

Although Schar had touched the ball when the whistle was blown, the view of manager Eddie Howe is simply that he was passing the ball back to Pope so he could take the free-kick.

Howe said had it been allowed to stand, it would have been a "very difficult goal to swallow".

"I could see it at the time, and for me it was clear Fabi wasn’t taking the kick," he told media in his post-match presser.

"He was allowing Nick to do it. I don’t know if the ref had blown his whistle, but I don't think he had to restart play.

"For me, it was clear that Nick was waiting to actually deliver the free-kick and then, obviously, Ronaldo had taken the ball off him. It would have been a very, very difficult goal to swallow if it had stood. For me it was clear the ball it wasn’t in play."

With Anthony Martial injured, Ronaldo started up top for United, who had just two shots on target in the 90 minutes.

He was replaced by Marcus Rashford in the 72nd minute and the England international nearly won it at the death with an injury-time header that went just wide.

Going into the midweek Premier League fixtures, United are fifth and ahead of sixth-placed Newcastle by one point.