Will VAR Change Football for the Better?

[TwigtheWonderkid]

unident said:

Puggit said:

And there's the evidence - no comments on it. Never mind, it was only Watford and they're going down any way....

Part of the reason is even the media push it under the carpet. Wasn't mentioned in the BBC report.

In the highly unlikely event that decision wasn't given to Liverpool/City/ManU it would still be being talked about.

You might complain, but there’s no comments about the Boro goal against United either. There are plenty of decisions that don’t get comments on here, no matter how poor we think they are.

The fans of the "smaller" clubs were all for VAR, because ref's always favour the "big" teams. VAR was going to be the great leveller. Now the fans of the smaller clubs are telling us the big clubs get the VAR calls.

Here's a theory, the big clubs have got more money, can buy better footballers, and when you have better footballers than the team you're playing, more stuff goes your way. Man City will get more pens than Watford, because they spend more time in the other team's penalty area.

[Puggit]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

The fans of the "smaller" clubs were all for VAR, because ref's always favour the "big" teams. VAR was going to be the great leveller. Now the fans of the smaller clubs are telling us the big clubs get the VAR calls.

Here's a theory, the big clubs have got more money, can buy better footballers, and when you have better footballers than the team you're playing, more stuff goes your way. Man City will get more pens than Watford, because they spend more time in the other team's penalty area.

Of course, teams which benefit from being in the opposition box more might see more penalty incidents. What is utter horsecrap is the way we are treated by VAR. We are not treated equally.

I asked on a Watford forum if any fan could remember when we received a decision which would have positively influenced a match in our favour (ie put us in the lead, score an eqauliser, prevent oppo scoring to go ahead/draw level) - no one could, excepting black and white offside decisions. Some decisions that would have been in our favour if correctly adjudicated have not even been reviewed by VAR (hence skewing the tables which suggest how many points are won or lost on VAR decisions being correct/incorrect).

We've even had the famous late equaliser for Spurs which was disallowed (correctly) according to the screen and then turned over.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/50024397

Non-penalty in same game: https://playingfor90.com/2019/10/26/five-worst-var...

Sterling offside, but VAR says no: https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/8600517/st...

Late equaliser at Leeds incorrectly rule out: https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/sport/footb...

For us it's been a one way journey of being put in our place by the referees. There is far too much coincidence that we are always suffering the unjust decisions. Every time there's a subjective call it is mostly given to the other team and always to a big team, never given to Watford. We're used to that being part of the rules now.

Plastic Sky-subscribing fans of the big teams will never understand this and just laugh it off as "it's only Watford". Pundits just ignore it or say "he's entitled to go down for that" and if it's a Watford player "he made a meal out of that". It's all just part of the game now.

[Driver101]

Puggit said:

I asked on a Watford forum if any fan could remember when we received a decision which would have positively influenced a match in our favour (ie put us in the lead, score an eqauliser, prevent oppo scoring to go ahead/draw level) - no one could, excepting black and white offside decisions. Some decisions that would have been in our favour if correctly adjudicated have not even been reviewed by VAR (hence skewing the tables which suggest how many points are won or lost on VAR decisions being correct/incorrect).

To be fair most football fans remember all the decisions that went against them, but quickly forget the ones that went their way.

Ask the same question on any football forum and they'll struggle to remember calls that went their way. Ask the same question on a rival's website and they'll remember the decisions your team got.

[unident]

So how do you explain the two disallowed United goals last night? Following your logic the big team playing the much smaller team who are bottom of the league should mean both were allowed with minimal review.

For reference I agree with one disallowed decision but not the other.

[Adam.]

Driver101 said:

To be fair most football fans remember all the decisions that went against them, but quickly forget the ones that went their way.

Ask the same question on any football forum and they'll struggle to remember calls that went their way. Ask the same question on a rival's website and they'll remember the decisions your team got.

thats fair - of the VAR decisions I didnt agree with, approx 50% went in our favour / 50% against

[Glassman]

Arsenal v Man City, Bernado Silva tries to get behind Xhaka in the box. Appeared to be going down any way, but Xhaka grabs his shirt as he begins to lean into the charge. Had Xhaka not grabbed his shirt he would have been fine. Penalty awarded against Arsenal.

Arsenal v Leicester and Mendy (can't remember for sure if it was him or Ricardo) grapples with Martinelli in the box, grabs his shirt and Martinelli hits the deck.

I'm not going to argue if it was a stone-waller or not, but VAR deemed the shirt pull was 'not enough' to bring the player down. No pen.

Inconsistency. The time it's taking to measure how much of a player is behind the last defender is grating now. Other stuff happens on the pitch and VAR doesn't get involved.

If it's here to stay, I'd like to see VAR nudge the referee and say the player clutching his face was not hit anywhere near his face and sin bin him.

[Driver101]

I'm still not convinced by VAR. It's still making too many errors and still inconsistent on is usage.

Handball is one of the main talking points. Now many fans are expecting a penalty far too easily. Then the handball during the Southampton v Watford game yesterday was one of the clearest handballs, but VAR said no.

[johnboy1975]

Driver101 said:

I'm still not convinced by VAR. It's still making too many errors and still inconsistent on is usage.

Handball is one of the main talking points. Now many fans are expecting a penalty far too easily. Then the handball during the Southampton v Watford game yesterday was one of the clearest handballs, but VAR said no.

The issue is that VAR is looking for a "clear and obvious error" rather than looking to make a correct call. So if a ref awards a 50/50 pen, VAR won't overule. Likewise, if he doesn't award it, VAR won't overule it. Except, to add further confusion, some VAR refs will decide that it was a clear and obvious error, and overule/not overule. So that's cleared that up then

As an Everton fan, the Man City handball really grates. Not least because it was "clear and obvious"

Add in further confusion by randomly getting the ref to wander up to the screen and have a "second go" himself in some scenarios, and not in other (nigh on identical) ones, depending on the mood of the referee / VAR team at any given point in time

Not fit for purpose

[mikeiow]

johnboy1975 said:

Driver101 said:

I'm still not convinced by VAR. It's still making too many errors and still inconsistent on is usage.

Handball is one of the main talking points. Now many fans are expecting a penalty far too easily. Then the handball during the Southampton v Watford game yesterday was one of the clearest handballs, but VAR said no.

The issue is that VAR is looking for a "clear and obvious error" rather than looking to make a correct call. So if a ref awards a 50/50 pen, VAR won't overule. Likewise, if he doesn't award it, VAR won't overule it. Except, to add further confusion, some VAR refs will decide that it was a clear and obvious error, and overule/not overule. So that's cleared that up then

As an Everton fan, the Man City handball really grates. Not least because it was "clear and obvious"

Add in further confusion by randomly getting the ref to wander up to the screen and have a "second go" himself in some scenarios, and not in other (nigh on identical) ones, depending on the mood of the referee / VAR team at any given point in time

Not fit for purpose

Absolutely

I find it utterly bizarre how every other sport that uses technology appears to make it work, yet football has turned VAR into a laughing stock.

Perhaps part of the problem is the Stockley Park ref’s (is it still all done via there?) are not fit for purpose. Every week it feels there is at least one blindingly obvious decision they manage to fk up.
Time to give up on it….

[Driver101]

johnboy1975 said:

The issue is that VAR is looking for a "clear and obvious error" rather than looking to make a correct call. So if a ref awards a 50/50 pen, VAR won't overule. Likewise, if he doesn't award it, VAR won't overule it. Except, to add further confusion, some VAR refs will decide that it was a clear and obvious error, and overule/not overule. So that's cleared that up then

As an Everton fan, the Man City handball really grates. Not least because it was "clear and obvious"

Add in further confusion by randomly getting the ref to wander up to the screen and have a "second go" himself in some scenarios, and not in other (nigh on identical) ones, depending on the mood of the referee / VAR team at any given point in time

Not fit for purpose

The error in the game against Man City was hard to understand.

There has been too many errors in recent weeks in my opinion. Judging an incident is still a matter of opinion. There is so many incidents that regardless of VAR's decision fans won't accept.

Clear and obvious is open to opinion. Some missed decisions have been obvious to me and other decisions VAR pulls up make no sense.

Some of the offside decisions I still can't see the offside with the lines.

It's not closing down much of the injustice and controversy. It adds to the ill feeling when the measure put in place to stop mistakes still makes mistakes that are hard to understand.

[unident]

johnboy1975 said:

The issue is that VAR is looking for a "clear and obvious error" rather than looking to make a correct call. So if a ref awards a 50/50 pen, VAR won't overule. Likewise, if he doesn't award it, VAR won't overule it. Except, to add further confusion, some VAR refs will decide that it was a clear and obvious error, and overule/not overule. So that's cleared that up then

As an Everton fan, the Man City handball really grates. Not least because it was "clear and obvious"

Add in further confusion by randomly getting the ref to wander up to the screen and have a "second go" himself in some scenarios, and not in other (nigh on identical) ones, depending on the mood of the referee / VAR team at any given point in time

Not fit for purpose

Even that doesn’t explain it though. The penalty in the Arsenal vs Leicester game was played about 30 times by VAR before they asked the ref to go and look. Putting aside that I don’t see the point in the ref looking as the decision has already been made to award it, there is no way that something that needs 30 replays could ever be described as a “clear and obvious error”.

[johnboy1975]

unident said:

johnboy1975 said:

The issue is that VAR is looking for a "clear and obvious error" rather than looking to make a correct call. So if a ref awards a 50/50 pen, VAR won't overule. Likewise, if he doesn't award it, VAR won't overule it. Except, to add further confusion, some VAR refs will decide that it was a clear and obvious error, and overule/not overule. So that's cleared that up then

As an Everton fan, the Man City handball really grates. Not least because it was "clear and obvious"

Add in further confusion by randomly getting the ref to wander up to the screen and have a "second go" himself in some scenarios, and not in other (nigh on identical) ones, depending on the mood of the referee / VAR team at any given point in time

Not fit for purpose

Even that doesn’t explain it though. The penalty in the Arsenal vs Leicester game was played about 30 times by VAR before they asked the ref to go and look. Putting aside that I don’t see the point in the ref looking as the decision has already been made to award it, there is no way that something that needs 30 replays could ever be described as a “clear and obvious error”.

Yes. I think some refs and VAR are working off "is it / isn't it" (correct thing to do IMO, but toenail offsides are a curse) whilst others are sticking to "clear and obvious". Otherwise, as you say, you'd only need 1 look at it.

[pingu393]

johnboy1975 said:

unident said:

johnboy1975 said:

The issue is that VAR is looking for a "clear and obvious error" rather than looking to make a correct call. So if a ref awards a 50/50 pen, VAR won't overule. Likewise, if he doesn't award it, VAR won't overule it. Except, to add further confusion, some VAR refs will decide that it was a clear and obvious error, and overule/not overule. So that's cleared that up then

As an Everton fan, the Man City handball really grates. Not least because it was "clear and obvious"

Add in further confusion by randomly getting the ref to wander up to the screen and have a "second go" himself in some scenarios, and not in other (nigh on identical) ones, depending on the mood of the referee / VAR team at any given point in time

Not fit for purpose

Even that doesn’t explain it though. The penalty in the Arsenal vs Leicester game was played about 30 times by VAR before they asked the ref to go and look. Putting aside that I don’t see the point in the ref looking as the decision has already been made to award it, there is no way that something that needs 30 replays could ever be described as a “clear and obvious error”.

Yes. I think some refs and VAR are working off "is it / isn't it" (correct thing to do IMO, but toenail offsides are a curse) whilst others are sticking to "clear and obvious". Otherwise, as you say, you'd only need 1 look at it.

Simple rule would be if VAR referees were only allowed one look at normal speed from their desired camera angle. The referee can only be in one place , but there are many places the VAR ref can be. He choses the one that he thinks will be conclusive and views the incident at normal speed. If he thinks it's worthy of the on-field ref seeing it, then the on-field ref gets to see it from that angle at full speed.

Slo-mo and multiple angles are for the TV shows on a Saturday night, not for the actual game.

[unident]

pingu393 said:

Simple rule would be if VAR referees were only allowed one look at normal speed from their desired camera angle. The referee can only be in one place , but there are many places the VAR ref can be. He choses the one that he thinks will be conclusive and views the incident at normal speed. If he thinks it's worthy of the on-field ref seeing it, then the on-field ref gets to see it from that angle at full speed.

Slo-mo and multiple angles are for the TV shows on a Saturday night, not for the actual game.

There is no value in the on-field ref looking at the monitor. Every single time that they have reviewed it they have changed their original decision. Some will argue that shows how VAR is working well as it corrects errors, but I see the opposite. The Arsenal / Leics penalty is a classic example of that where I still can’t see it hit Soyuncu’s hand (nor could VAR for 30 replays), whereas the City defender vs Everton was as blatant as you’ll ever see.

[Wonderman]

unident said:

pingu393 said:

Simple rule would be if VAR referees were only allowed one look at normal speed from their desired camera angle. The referee can only be in one place , but there are many places the VAR ref can be. He choses the one that he thinks will be conclusive and views the incident at normal speed. If he thinks it's worthy of the on-field ref seeing it, then the on-field ref gets to see it from that angle at full speed.

Slo-mo and multiple angles are for the TV shows on a Saturday night, not for the actual game.

There is no value in the on-field ref looking at the monitor. Every single time that they have reviewed it they have changed their original decision. Some will argue that shows how VAR is working well as it corrects errors, but I see the opposite. The Arsenal / Leics penalty is a classic example of that where I still can’t see it hit Soyuncu’s hand (nor could VAR for 30 replays), whereas the City defender vs Everton was as blatant as you’ll ever see.

Or they looked at 30 times to try and find a way NOT to give it. The ref who hates us, gives us a pen, I think if there was wriggle room he'd have used it.

Now would it be fair to say VAR makes it exciting for those watching it on Sky subscription with multi-angle replays "getting value for money", rather than us poor mugs in the ground awaiting the outcome? TV has the money and can set the dates comes up with a 4.30 ko on a Sunday, an 8.15ko Wednesday and early KO Saturday, VAR adds to the clicks so won't be going anywhere.

I think earlier poster touched on it but surely questions should be like the offside- is it offside YES/NO, is it a foul/ pen, deliberate handball, it is something that the ref should be aware off off the ball etc- it doesn't need to be framed as a clear and obvious error i.e. the ref has made a mess of it, be more like rugby e.g. asks for help, not sure if handball what do you see VAR? I really think if VAR is staying the lines persons need to go as they really add nothing and are so confused especially on offsides...

Actually don't get me started on the cock up that is offside rule...

[Driver101]

Wonderman said:

Now would it be fair to say VAR makes it exciting for those watching it on Sky subscription with multi-angle replays "getting value for money", rather than us poor mugs in the ground awaiting the outcome?

I don't think it's much different watching on TV or in the ground in terms of VAR. It breaks the game up and slows it down. It becomes annoying spending too much time analyzing incidents.

[unident]

Wonderman said:

Or they looked at 30 times to try and find a way NOT to give it. The ref who hates us, gives us a pen, I think if there was wriggle room he'd have used it.

Now would it be fair to say VAR makes it exciting for those watching it on Sky subscription with multi-angle replays "getting value for money", rather than us poor mugs in the ground awaiting the outcome? TV has the money and can set the dates comes up with a 4.30 ko on a Sunday, an 8.15ko Wednesday and early KO Saturday, VAR adds to the clicks so won't be going anywhere.

I think earlier poster touched on it but surely questions should be like the offside- is it offside YES/NO, is it a foul/ pen, deliberate handball, it is something that the ref should be aware off off the ball etc- it doesn't need to be framed as a clear and obvious error i.e. the ref has made a mess of it, be more like rugby e.g. asks for help, not sure if handball what do you see VAR? I really think if VAR is staying the lines persons need to go as they really add nothing and are so confused especially on offsides...

Actually don't get me started on the cock up that is offside rule...

No it wouldn’t be fair as nobody could see a handball.

[pavarotti1980]

How come it worked relatively well in the Euros but the PL have made an absolute dogs dinner of it?

It cant be the individual refs but the way in which it is implemented by the PL. Mike Riley is in charge of it all so lets blame him as he was a ste ref on the field when he was doing that too

[pingu393]

pavarotti1980 said:

How come it worked relatively well in the Euros but the PL have made an absolute dogs dinner of it?

It cant be the individual refs but the way in which it is implemented by the PL. Mike Riley is in charge of it all so lets blame him as he was a ste ref on the field when he was doing that too

Very good point about the Euros. I can't think of one poor decision, except of course that Czech goal against Scotland . The goalie wasn't ready .

[pavarotti1980]

pingu393 said:

Very good point about the Euros. I can't think of one poor decision, except of course that Czech goal against Scotland . The goalie wasn't ready .

I cant think of any contentious decisions either. It was correct in the decisions it reviewed and was in a relatively efficient manner. Maybe the PL/PGMOL should just adopt the same principles. This clear and obvious error thing is just bks. Even look at the way rugby does things as an exemplar (VAR + the manner of refereeing too. I watched the Man U game last night and Fernandes and Ronaldo were berating the ref for decisions but not a single thing was done. They need to grow a pair and start sending players off for this type of st. It would soon stop