Get rid of VAR NOW! We want our game back! (...or not, some are happy)
- Thread starter RedFish
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I must confess I was in favour of VAR but having seen it in action in Italy, Germany and now here I am against it. I still believe in an idealised version of VAR but it seems that there's no chance of it being implemented in the sparing fashion that I envision it. I'd want it to be something that the majority of games pass by without needing any reference to it. Its current usage is an emotional drain on the game.
That's largely the case in the current PL system, to a fault I think. Most games haven't had any real VAR interventions.
I think VAR had a poor game today.
It's not in the games I've watched. City v West Ham we had Sterling given offside because his shirt sleeve was supposedly a cm ahead of the West Ham defender, we then had another long wait because he may have been offside but this time they decided that he wasn't, we then had Aguero get to retake a penalty for encroachment. There will have been other stoppages I've forgotten in that game alone; pretty certain a possible red card was checked for because Antonio caught Rodri in the face accidentally. City v Spurs we've had a last minute winner disallowed because of a new handball rule they've introduced purely to accommodate VAR a couple of minutes after it went in. We had another ridiculous possible red card check involving Rose in the first half. Then in today's game we had a long wait for Wolves first goal to be allowed to stand. It's stupid and unnecessary and ruining the experience for players and fans. You heard the Wolves stadium after Neves's goal. Imagine that getting ruled out because some guy sitting in front of a computer after two minutes of drawing lines and using some guesswork has decided someone was a millimetre ahead of the play.
Anybody got the freeze frame of the VAR challenge? It looked like Jota was offside before they scored.
Well it’s not guesswork is it, that’s the whole fecking point
You happen to have watched most of the games with major VAR incidents.
Of the 20 PL games so far the ones with major incidents were the two City games, the game with the goal disallowed for handball (Wolves?) and today if you want to count that (even though it just amounted to a delay in confirming a decision that had already been made). Beyond that I can't think of anything major?
Compare that to the (better) iteration of VAR we had at the World Cup, for example, and think of how how many VAR incidents you would have got across 20 games there. The majority of PL games have passed by without incident.
@Berbaclass The whole point of what?
Honestly mate this VAR has been a bit of a mess so far, surely you can see that.
Honestly mate this VAR has been a bit of a mess so far, surely you can see that.
Well it’s not guesswork is it, that’s the whole fecking point
You're telling me that they can decide with 100% accuracy whether a player was offside or not?
The fact that from the three televised games alone I've mentioned we've had numerous incidents hardly attests to your claim that it's used sparingly though, does it? This is only the televised games. I know Brighton had a goal disallowed the other day. I'm sure people who watched these games could bring up a few more instances of times where there was a needlessly long delay.
Kist give the contract for VAR to Sky and BT Sport, they seem to do a better job than VAR team anyways showing angles that VAR team for some strange ironic reason doesn't seem to have 
VAR is messed up. There was Italian league game - Fiorentina against someone. There was a potential foul in the Penalty area of the team playing Fiorentina but no call, the other team got the ball and went on a counter attack and scored. After they scored, the call was reviewed and penalty given, so not only that the other got goal revoked but penalty was also rewarded against them from which Fiorentina scored. Made me sick.
I am not allowed to post videos, but if you want to see it, go on youtube and search for "fiorentina var penalty"
I agree that foul existed and that penalty should have been rewarded, but there is just something lost in that whole situation. I was watching that game as a neutral completely and got pissed off as if it happened to my team, don't even wanna imagine how Spal fans felt.
I am not allowed to post videos, but if you want to see it, go on youtube and search for "fiorentina var penalty"
I agree that foul existed and that penalty should have been rewarded, but there is just something lost in that whole situation. I was watching that game as a neutral completely and got pissed off as if it happened to my team, don't even wanna imagine how Spal fans felt.
That’s how the sport’s worked for over 150 years without much issue. Odd that you can’t comprehend how people find the change annoying.
Genuinely baffled how any intelligent person is against fair play.
Genuinely baffled how any intelligent person doesn't understand how a fan on the opposing end of a bad call feels.
Genuinely baffled how any intelligent person doesn't understand that VAR is in its infancy.
Genuinely baffled how any intelligent person doesn't understand how VAR, like most technology implementations, can be improved.
Theoretically, VAR should be solving this but from what I've seen it doesn't really.
And after thinking about it, unless every single call in the game is reviewed I don't think it ever can.
VAR - solving none of the actual problems but creating completely new ones that nobody asked for since 2017.
You also had the issue of VAR not intervening to overturn Wan-Bissaka’s yellow card which was clearly not a handball.
Pogba’s pen was questionable too. Just looked like he vaulted over Coady’s leg to me.
It honestly seemed to be quite well done at Russia 2018. None of the really petty nonsense that we’ve seen since it arrived in the CL that I can remember. The only problem I had with it then was when the match ref bottled giving a clear red card to Cristiano despite the video evidence being conclusive.
I was all in for VAR and have wanted it for years but since it’s started being used in the CL I’m converted to the “luddite anti-VAR brigade”. It’s making a nonsense of the game.
That’s not to say I’ve done a full 180. I still think there’s a place for video replay to overturn incorrect decisions but only in the case of major injustices rather than this intrusive behemoth reviewing every goal to try to find a reason to disallow it.
I still like VAR, at least in concept. I like the idea of correcting an official when they make a big mistake. I think it should be just for the clear errors and things like a red offence behind the play that wasn't seen, goals, penalties, etc. so I'm not worked up on missing something like an incorrectly awarded goal kick vice a corner, which then the team scores on the corner. To me, that's part of the game and I still expect our team to be able to defend a corner (and score penalties, but that's another thread).
In the end I don't know now. I would like to think that VAR will get better over time, but I've also been watching the NFL for decades and instant replay, although overall helping the game, has had similar issues that have never been resolved and has resulted in nobody knowing what something so simple as a catch is anymore. So you end up trying to enforce rules that were written for human officials to decide on the spot in real time, to rules written for replay officials to determine in super slow motion over several minutes. In that sense, it's terrible.
In the end I don't know now. I would like to think that VAR will get better over time, but I've also been watching the NFL for decades and instant replay, although overall helping the game, has had similar issues that have never been resolved and has resulted in nobody knowing what something so simple as a catch is anymore. So you end up trying to enforce rules that were written for human officials to decide on the spot in real time, to rules written for replay officials to determine in super slow motion over several minutes. In that sense, it's terrible.
Was thinking the same, but...
https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/cs1bbe/why_var_can_never_be_definitive/
Guess it's 99.7% or so now.
Love how people making it out that current VAR system is final, how it cant/wont be improved. So fecking dumb.
I'm confident that Ryan Bennet's shoulder was encroaching on the Pogba penalty. I count 9 encroachments in total but the specific thing about Bennett was that he cleared the ball. The precedent for VAR would be to step in as it did for the Aguero/Rice incident. As far as we're aware they didn't even check and they couldn't have drawn the offside-style lines because there was no pause in play. It's a very close call and not really possible for the human eye to judge from one angle.
Is it permitted to use to offside line-drawing technology for encroachment?
Is it permitted to use to offside line-drawing technology for encroachment?
Yeah that was terrible. It would've been terrible before VAR, as it's a lino simply guessing at offside. But with VAR, it's infinitely worse. Fecking infuriating.
I'm still pro-VAR, but I'd like to see it go back to just being used in the cups, as we're now seeing more issues we didn't see when it was just in the cups/Europe.
For a system as massive as it is, I feel that it's still a few years of practical testing away from being ready for week in week out football.
For a system as massive as it is, I feel that it's still a few years of practical testing away from being ready for week in week out football.
In the last 5mins or so of the game? I immediately said to my mate that the linesman should've let the play go on but our commentator said it was the right call and it certainly looked that way to me - his shoulder was offside when turning away from what I remember. Need to see it again to be sure though.
As for VAR, it's still a good thing, it's the handball rule that needs to be changed again. I couldn't stop laughing after the Laporte handball, so fecking ridiculous.
Don't remember what minute it was but on the replay it looked well onside to me. Not sure where to look for a decent replay now.
The commentators said it was the right call based on Martials shoulder being just ahead of his markers (though it was incredibly tight) . But the next defender along looked to be slightly further back and playing him on, but they didn't show it from a flat angle or draw a line so it was hard to be certain.
They should have let it go and review it resulted in a goal. Far too close just to guess.
Oh sure, definitely agree on the bolded parts - he was basically on par with the defenders in any case so they definitely need to let the play go on with VAR being used now.
As expected, none of the highlights I found included the incident. The only thing I could find was The Guardian's min-by-min: "90 min Maguire slides a nice pass down the inside-left channel to find Martial, who is wrongly flagged offside." Seriously annoying, it was a promising attack and really not something you want taken from you when chasing a win in the 90th minute.
So fcking dumb that you think it can be improved. It’s been around for a while for starters & all it is is some other guy looking at a replay- you can’t quicken up or improve that
Of course it can be improved. Aside from technological improvements which could improve the speed of the 3D imaging required for some calls, aside from rule changes addressing issues with the handball/offside, aside from the people using the VAR tech becoming quicker and more comfortable with it through experience, they could simply settle on best practice for how it is used.
A lot of aspects of PL's VAR aren't best practice. In fact in some cases they're things that have been tried in other leagues before later being changed after they failed. Why the PL decided to try them again I have no idea.
Considering how VAR now is worse and more intrusive than it was a year ago, I can easily see any further “improvements” being anything but.
Ball was played backwards so can't be offside.
This happened in the Chelsea game as well, Maddison was flagged offside and then the incident was just never shown again, so impossible to say if he was actually offside or not. Very odd decision by the broadcasters to just disappear the incident.
Agree on the handball rule, IFAB have messed up biggly. The original way handball was done was that it had to be intentional, then the referees got guidelines so players couldn't just make themselves bigger using their arms and claim non intentional handball. Now it's a farce with different rules for defenders / attackers.
What I found interesting from game last night was James boot in foul. In La Liga this weekend Modric & Molina both made very similar challenge to that, it went to VAR, ref looked on the monitor, and they both got sent off straight red.
On last night's showing it's probably 10 years away from even being a net benefit. It may never be worth the delays.
Yeah, it's a little strange isn't it. Also, Martial was onside last night when Maguire played that lovely pass, it was a very good piece of play all-round. The linesman then wrongly flagged, and that was the end of it, no-one said anything about it. That's really, really poor. Ultimately where we're going is removing linesmen/women, especially if their wrong decisions are actually harming the game. There is no point a linesman/women putting their flag up if they're even slightly unsure, if they're wrong and put their flag up they negatively impact the game.
Which incident are you referring to? I don't remember seeing anything that could result in a straight sending off.
Wolves player went down on the halfway line at some point and they continued to attack, on replay James stood on his foot. To me it was very similar to these two reds, maybe James was a bit more on top of the boot and these were more on the ankle:
I just found it interesting that they didn't even refer it, to me just shows how different the rules are in different leagues.
Exact same thing happened against Chelsea. Flag went up for offside, ref called it, replay showed he (think it was Rashford) was onside. Nobody mentioned it cause we thrashed them anyway.
Last night was more annoying, we could have scored from there.
Any footage from our game? If it was anything like the Modric one, I'd be very surprised if I somehow missed it completely and haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else.
Edit: found some mention of the indicent now, must've missed the first couple of minutes of the second half. Seems like it could've been a second yellow.
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Wait what happened yesterday that warrented any intervention from VAR?