How many mistakes in favour of Spurs and Liverpool, it's absolutely ludicrous.
I thought Newcastle were very unlucky with the second Pen as well.
At least it looks like Webb is trying to sort it out.
Many experts obviously love the sound of it when Webb talks — but from my POV it is just complete bullocks. Listen to what he actually says. Everything is about putting the on field official at the center of things. Webb talks about how in hindsight, he would have wanted VAR at hand back when he was on the job, because it’s impossible to see everything and VAR can come in and help with the worst misses. Sounds good — right? But it becomes a complete nightmare. It’s just not in touch with reality.
Reality is that:
*Refs misses a big part of what is going on, on the field. Howard Webb is obviously blissfully ignorant of that.
*Hence, VAR comes in with high frequency, not just a few time per season for a team.
*Since VAR gets used with high frequency, and the people behind the screens got every chance at getting it right unlike the guy on the field, fans — demand — that they are consistent and get it right.
*Nothing is designed to get consistent calls from VAR. On the contrary, per design, it’s job is to come to diverging results in identical situations — because it shall only overrule the guy on the pitch if his call is “clear and obvious” wrong. It’s basically a coin flip which rulebook to use, depending on if the on the pitch ref saw it or not.
*The on field officials rotate on VAR duty.
*When is a call clear and obviously wrong? This is only established in very basic situations. The classic 50/50 situations, on the replay you can see that the defender perhaps didn’t hit the foot first, but the touch on the attacker wasn’t hard and the attacker went down easy. Was a non penalty call clear and obliviously wrong? Nah, of course not. Nobody want every other game decided by soft pens. Good.
*But according to the rules, all infractions committed in the penalty area is a penalty. How do you evaluate a play if someone is heading out of the penalty area but there is a clear trip? There is no conformity. Wrestling moves during corners. Etc etc etc.
Ultimately, it comes down to this.
Firstly, you must establish what you want from the referee? The game of football? No matter if you see it as a business or entertainment or a competition — I think it’s extremely hard to come away from that in the long run, it’s best to not deviate from the intended role of a referee in a sport. It’s just such a slippery slope if you start to consider factors like entertainment value of a specific call and stuff like that. People have a strong sense of right and wrong by nature, and in the long run it’s very frustrating to follow a game that just isn’t fair for all the wrong reasons.
Secondly, hence, you must establish (a) rules that shall apply in all games from start to finish that everyone can accept and (b) apply those rules.
For example, if nobody want a ton of soft penalties — then you should make that the rule. This is a bit of an elephant in the room, because it leads to the question — can you commit softer infractions against someone leaving the penalty area? Always pull a bit in their arms and shirt? But come on, its not like it’s the hardest dilemma in the world ever. Either you admit that, or change the rule. Start to give indirect free kicks if an infraction clearly does not prevent a scoring chance or whatever.
Now, it’s instead turned into a pure lottery, did the on pitch ref see it or not? Did he make a correct or incorrect call? Who is on VAR duty? Etc.
In addition, the organization should be built to achieve this. Of course the on pitch ref should have nothing to do what the VAR decision. Etc etc etc.
