VAR and Refs | General Discussion

This is why nobody will ever be happy with VAR. Four man panel votes 3-1 that Amrabat didn’t foul Gordon, several days after the incident (which looked like a definite foul to me). So why on earth do we expect the referee/VAR guy to come up with decisions that keeps everyone happy in a matter of seconds?
 


P-Nut said:
It's the way it's worked for me.

It seems so obvious to take a leaf out of other sports that are played at a fast pace.

You can go the rugby route, and the ref asks for clarification if he isn't sure in big moments, or the basketball route and have coaches challenges.

Both scenarios limit the amount of impact Var has, but keeps it for the big injustices or just to clarify an event that the ref isn't sure on rather than completely reffing the game.

I'm actually fine with automated offsides and of course goal line technology.
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This is the best way to implement VAR if its going to stay in the game for me
 
Malons said:
Name one offside not given as tight the Garnacho's disallowed goal vs Arsenal that still has people talking about it to this day. You can't. It doesn't exist.
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I've no idea what your point is.

VAR is necessary so that objectively awful decisions no longer decide games and championships. It isn't the tight ones, it's the miles offside ones that would otherwise get missed that are the best argument for keeping VAR, especially with the semi automated system coming in next season.
 
Malons said:
Name one offside not given as tight the Garnacho's disallowed goal vs Arsenal that still has people talking about it to this day. You can't. It doesn't exist.
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Ellen White against USA in the Women's World Cup Semi and Jesse Lingard against Holland in the first UEFA Nations League finals.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
This is why nobody will ever be happy with VAR. Four man panel votes 3-1 that Amrabat didn’t foul Gordon, several days after the incident (which looked like a definite foul to me). So why on earth do we expect the referee/VAR guy to come up with decisions that keeps everyone happy in a matter of seconds?
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3-1? I thought there was always 5 on the panel? Even so, that seemed like a very obvious penalty to me with benefit of replays. I've literally zero clue how anyone can think it shouldn't have been.

But agreed, I'm a human too and everything I think isn't always 100% correct. The laws of the game are subejective and like you said VAR just can't satisfy people and remove the controversy. The laws are open for interpretation, if they were crystal clear you wouldn't have split votes like we had here. There is still one person on that panel thinking it was a foul. It's impossible to write the laws in such a way that everyone would always come to the same conclusion though.

They also vote twice, would like to see the other one. Second vote is not to do with penalty or not, but should VAR have intervened or not. You can get situations where the panel vote 5-0 or 4-1 that it was a foul, but 2-3 that it wasn't a clear and obvious enough error for the VAR to intervene. VAR uses the same criteria on the day of course. Clear and obvious adding another level of subjectivity.
 
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Pogue Mahone said:
This is why nobody will ever be happy with VAR. Four man panel votes 3-1 that Amrabat didn’t foul Gordon, several days after the incident (which looked like a definite foul to me). So why on earth do we expect the referee/VAR guy to come up with decisions that keeps everyone happy in a matter of seconds?
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What annoys me the most about this and every other time the panel results have come out like this is that they are never willing to explain their decision. The dissenting voice on that panel has explained their decision, but three voted to back the referee and VAR decisions on the day and we don’t know why the referee made that decision (probably because they didn’t see it in real time), why VAR didn’t overturn it (probably because they were rushing and didn’t see the one angle which showed the contact, or they simply felt the “threshold had not been met”) and we now don’t know why three panelist’s felt the correct decision was taken. We don’t know if these panelist’s are determining a foul did not occur for whatever technicality, or if they were simply judging on the context of VAR and deciding they were right to determine that the threshold was not met.

It’s just murky as feck and comes across as a secret handshake club where they all look after their own.
 
Shane88 said:
One of the most egregious tactical fouls you'll see this season, 3 yards in front of the ref's face, no yellow.
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But VAR shouldn't get involved in that. If the threshold for using it is any challenge that might be a booking then matches are going to be lasting 5 hours.
 
P-Nut said:
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Gamifying it doesn't help if the actual decision making process remains the same. All this does is shift the blame onto the managers and when they do/don't use reviews.
 
So if you've used up your "challenges" by the 82nd minute, and the ref misses a blatant handball in the box, does VAR just ignore it?

Or will it still intervene and therefore continue to check every incident regardless of whether a challenge is made, but we introduce the concept of challenges, just to make people feel included?

Struggling with deciding which of those two scenarios would be the least absurd.
 
VAR worked brilliantly in the play off final today.

Crewe through on goal, striker rounds the keeper and goes down. Penalty. VAR then shows the ref the Crewe player dived (one of those where he leaves his leg to try to make contact with the keeper and even then there's hardly any contact). Decision overturned, no penalty.

The sad thing about all that, the premier league in that situation would probably just stick with the ref's call and there's where VAR keeps on failing every few weeks.
 
Michael Oliver...words fail me sometimes.

Jesus deliberately twists his shoulder to control the ball, and after Atwell correctly advises him to disallow the resulting goal, Oliver sticks with his original decision.

It is so farcical you couldn't make it up. If your arm is below your waist, you can still use it to control the ball, which is exactly what Jesus did.
 
LDUred said:
Michael Oliver...words fail me sometimes.

Jesus deliberately used his arm to control the ball, and after Atwell correctly advised him to disallow the resulting goal, Oliver somehow stuck with his original decision.

It is so farcical you couldn't make it up. If your arm is below your waist, you can still use it to control the ball, which is exactly what Jesus did.
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Is that what happened? Talksport went mad and said Oliver did the right thing by telling VAR to “do one”.
 
FootballHQ said:
VAR worked brilliantly in the play off final today.

Crewe through on goal, striker rounds the keeper and goes down. Penalty. VAR then shows the ref the Crewe player dived (one of those where he leaves his leg to try to make contact with the keeper and even then there's hardly any contact). Decision overturned, no penalty.

The sad thing about all that, the premier league in that situation would probably just stick with the ref's call and there's where VAR keeps on failing every few weeks.
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Yeah, it's not uncommon in that kind of situation that the ref is completely unsighted by the keeper's body and is basically just having a pure guess.

Mad that people want to go back to that, rather than fixing the clownshow that is the PL implementation of the system.
 
Berbasbullet said:
Is that what happened? Talksport went mad and said Oliver did the right thing by telling VAR to “do one”.
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Jesus basically leans into the ball in order to evade Tarkowski's challenge.

I know Arsenal fans and TalkSport will say his arm in its 'natural position', but for me, that's obviously an intentional handball. He's used his arm to manipulate the ball and to play it where he wants to go.
 
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We got goals disallowed for a fingernails and hairstraws and here We have clear handball and nothing.
We all know how ManUtd are treated and how many points we have lost because of all decisions if you compare to other teams.
 
LDUred said:
Michael Oliver...words fail me sometimes.

Jesus deliberately twists his shoulder to control the ball, and after Atwell correctly advises him to disallow the resulting goal, Oliver sticks with his original decision.

It is so farcical you couldn't make it up. If your arm is below your waist, you can still use it to control the ball, which is exactly what Jesus did.
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I haven't seen this, but if Jesus controls the ball with his shoulder, as you say, that is not handball, and even if it hits his shoulder and drops down and hits his arm it still isn't handball

Edit: seen it now, no shoulder involved, bit iffy that one!
 
LDUred said:


Jesus basically leans into the ball in order to evade Tarkowski's challenge.

I know Arsenal fans and TalkSport will say his arm in its 'natural position', but for me, that's obviously an intentional handball. He's used his arm to manipulate the ball and to play it where he wants to go.
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That is a bonkers decision!
 
It's a shocking decision. VAR recommended he changed it and the arrogant cnut refused to. The only reason it will be glossed over is because there was nothing riding on the game. Neither team could change league position with a draw instead of an Arsenal win.
 
VAR isn't the problem: the refs are. Allowing the winner against Everton was a joke and proves some refs don't know the actual rules. He went to the monitor and still gave it
 
mitchmouse said:
VAR isn't the problem: the refs are. Allowing the winner against Everton was a joke and proves some refs don't know the actual rules. He went to the monitor and still gave it
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Nope. The inability to celebrate a goal incase it’s a mm offside is the technology’s fault and the principle of it being used for a rule that it was never meant for. This is the single biggest issue with VAR.
 
Offside said:
Nope. The inability to celebrate a goal incase it’s a mm offside is the technology’s fault and the principle of it being used for a rule that it was never meant for. This is the single biggest issue with VAR.
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that's just not relevant to the actual game
 
mitchmouse said:
VAR isn't the problem: the refs are. Allowing the winner against Everton was a joke and proves some refs don't know the actual rules. He went to the monitor and still gave it
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VAR is a ref

It isn't some AI operating system.

It's a person. We might as well start calling linesman 'Visual Assistive Operator' or VAO for short and referring to them as akin to cyborgs because we use an acronym to describe them.
 
VAR wasn't the issue with the Arsenal goal. They recommended it was disallowed. Oliver ignored them.
 
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It's crazy how much they have botched this, a multi-billion dollar industry and they could not implement this correctly. It's farcical.

They had the resources to test this, they could test how it would work over 10s even 100s of friendly matches to iron out the issues, then introduce from grassroots up, addressing issues as they appear, but we got to a stage where it is so poorly used it is a talking point almost every game.
 
The fact VAR has proven useless except to rule out goals by 2mm with a method of using a blury image taken from 80 yards away that at best must have a margin of error of about half a foot, is ridiculous
 
Pogue Mahone said:
This is why nobody will ever be happy with VAR. Four man panel votes 3-1 that Amrabat didn’t foul Gordon, several days after the incident (which looked like a definite foul to me). So why on earth do we expect the referee/VAR guy to come up with decisions that keeps everyone happy in a matter of seconds?
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Surely you see this reffing standards, not a VAR problem though? It was a certain foul and penalty.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
Surely you see this reffing standards, not a VAR problem though? It was a certain foul and penalty.
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That’s your opinion. Many would disagree. Same as every other debatable decision. Hence VAR won’t ever remove controversy and disagreement around calls like this. So why should we put up with all the obvious downsides? (can’t celebrate goals, long stoppages, double digit injury time etc etc)
 
Pogue Mahone said:
That’s your opinion. Many would disagree. Same as every other debatable decision. Hence VAR won’t ever remove controversy and disagreement around calls like this. So why should we put up with all the obvious downsides? (can’t celebrate goals, long stoppages, double digit injury time etc etc)
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Everyone on here seems in unison on this one? The issue with the ref reviews is they are very very hesitant to ever criticize their own.

Would be interesting to do a VAR review poll - I don't know how to do it - where you have certain scenarios from the season (maybe leaving out United/Pool as people will be biased) and then vote on the poll foul or no foul. I'd bet the results would make a lot more sense than what we've seen by a paid refereeing body because the bulk of their errors are from incompetence.
 
Problem with a challenge system is what happens if you used it up and then on the 88th minute the opposition punches the ball in the net to win the game or equalize, ref missed it as his view was blocked but we can all see on video clear as day. We have just have to accept the goal, that would be madness with everything available.

Better ways to keep it obvious is a short time limit, non of this super slow mo for ages back and forth, if you can't see it or decide within 10 seconds then move on, it's not there over analyze.

Make the laws more clear and less open to interpretation, review past incidents in a group of refs to build what is right or wrong. It won't be perfect but it will improve enough.

I think every ref should know how to decide that Arsenal handball for instance if the rules are clearer. Can you extend your body with your arm at your side to play the ball or not. We have an understanding if the ball hits your arm by your side in the box it's not a pen, it's an interesting question about playing the ball with your arm by your side to nudge it past another player, setting up an attack. We sometimes see a loose ball hit a players arm by the side arm when nothing much is on they're allowed to continue with control of the ball.
 
‘Forward invaded the defender’s space’ is not a reason I’ve ever heard for not giving a stonewall penalty.

 
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