VAR, Refs and Linesmen | General Discussion

SER19 said:
9 games in:

An absurd, overturned, red card against fernandes.

Mind boggling decision to send off de Ligt with seconds to play, for a wound that had already been treated, was untouched on sideline before he was allowed to return in the exact same condition he was sent off in.

Todays call was the worst penalty decision I have ever seen. Theres nothing to add. Michael Oliver is a compromised offical.

and lower level:

personally thought casemiro was fouled by diaz, and looking at what we got a penalty against for today, then yeah.

Against Brighton, Veltman literally sprawled out and swept the ball away with his arm and got no booking. Not a game changer but inexplicable.

Again, i thought the late palace handball was a penalty, but like the casemiro one, these judgement calls never seem to go our way or balance out.
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The decision to sent De Ligt to get treatment wasn’t mind-boggling, it was literally following the clearly stated rules of the game.

And while this call is horrible and Oliver shouldn’t be in the profession, I’m quite surprised if it’s actually the worst penalty call that you’ve seen.
 
I think the issue with the penalty is the fact that it's got overturned by VAR, there is no way it's clear and obvious. Iv seen far more clear and obvious be ignored in recent years and we are meant to have a higher threshold now for VAR intervention.

It's another example of really how terrible VAR is, still very much at the whim of a ref making it up as they go along. Still dealing with the consequences of mistakes despite having VAR checking all the decisions.

VAR was meant to make things better, it has failed miserably it's arguably made things worse particuly around red cards and penalties. It's a complete lottery like it was before VAR but at least pre VAR you could forgive a ref for making a mistake now it really does just look like complete incompetence or cheating maybe a bit of both.
 
2 man midfield said:
As it stands, it’s an absolute lottery and the enemy of consistency, the thing they’re trying to achieve.
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I don't think it's inconsistent at all. The most concerning part for me is how consistent it is. Multiple disgraceful calls against United now.

The most shocking part is the widespread condemnation of a decision that went against United. It just goes to show how egregious it was.

noodlehair said:
There needs to start being independent investigations or sackings for decisions where a VAR official invents something that never happened.

I think it's the only way it will stop. And it would stop, immediately, if there were actual consequences, because it's actually very easy to not do anything when there is absolutely no need to.

I can understand contentious decisions or ones where maybe fans or players don't agree with the interpretation, or even daft stuff where the rule or threshold for breaching it is made vague, but we constantly get decisions in games where none of these arguments apply.

Feel like I've been making this same post every 2 weeks for 3 years now. It won't stop happening until the officials are actually accountable for doing their jobs with integrity and a level of basic competence.

If people were allowed to feck up as badly and frequently in my profession and be protected every time, it'd be full of incompetent, corrupt oafs. This is what you have with the pgmol. It's supposed to be a job for "professional" officials. So maybe try holding them to professional standards
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I completely agree. VAR was introduced to increase the frequency of making the correct decision.

For the referees and those in the VAR booth (in the Premier League), making the correct decision is nowhere near their number one priority.

In the greater scheme of things, nobody will care if the referee makes a genuine mistake. But defending the indefensible only adds to the sense that it wasn't a genuine mistake.
 
Because it’s Michael Oliver I’m 100% expecting Webb to go full North Korea over it and gas light the feck out of us while world renowned investigative journalist Michael Owen asks cutting questions like “so in your opinion it was a penalty?”
 
Still raging about that decision but just as annoyed at ourselves for failing to win a game like that well before they had a chance to do us over. The footballing world is pretty united in that it was an appalling decision. We need to be pushing that now to limit the chances of these happening again against us.
 
Michael Oliver should never have intervened and asked the ref to go see VAR.
 
It still amazes me that Michael Oliver, a declared Newcastle fan, who has also been on all expenses paid trips to referee in the Saudi league, is also allowed to influence the outcome of matches which might indirectly affect Newcastle.

Two seasons ago when they were fighting to get top 4 ahead of us he was refereeing our matches. Last season it was him on VAR giving the penalty for city at OT and sending off Dalot at Anfield.

It's a bit like if I was a Premier league referee and a declared united fan, and thinking that I could avoid bias if asked to referee a Liverpool or city game. I wouldn't be able to do it fairly because I hate both of them.
 
POF said:
I don't think it's inconsistent at all. The most concerning part for me is how consistent it is. Multiple disgraceful calls against United now.

The most shocking part is the widespread condemnation of a decision that went against United. It just goes to show how egregious it was.



I completely agree. VAR was introduced to increase the frequency of making the correct decision.

For the referees and those in the VAR booth (in the Premier League), making the correct decision is nowhere near their number one priority.

In the greater scheme of things, nobody will care if the referee makes a genuine mistake. But defending the indefensible only adds to the sense that it wasn't a genuine mistake.
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The thing that gets me time and again is there is absolutely no reason why VAR should, at any point, be another avenue for officials to get things wrong. All it is doing is showing you video footage of what happened, from multiple angles.

At worst, there will be situations where the camera angles still don't make it clear, or where the rule makes no sense, or where a decision will be contested either way.

As soon as you've got officials using video footage of incidents to actually make an incorrect decision, you HAVE to ask why and hold them to account. Because there are only two possible reasons to do this. One is that they have no idea how to do their own job and the other I they are doing it on purpose....and when they keep doing it, and no one gets fired and there's no investigation, and nothing is ever done to stop it, the idea it's by accident becomes less and less likely. Someone WANTS them to be making these mistakes because otherwise they wouldn't be happening.

And you add to that, there are multiple retired referees who've come out and said, amd written books, given interviews, etc. Openly admitting they deliberately got decisions wrong to protect their mate, or add to the drama of the game...and they've given specific examples of when they did it, IN important premier league games. So we actually know for a fact that it is a corrupt system.

And again I feel like I've said this on repeat for 3 years now but no one in football seems to want to face up to it, and until they do it will just carry on
 
Neville’s reaction was exactly the same as mine and probably everyone else’s when watching the referee give.

It was clear as day that the referee didn’t think it was a penalty and had no idea what to do. It felt like he gave it after a mental toss of a coin simply because a decision had to be made. VAR really fecked it.
 
Longshanks said:
I think the issue with the penalty is the fact that it's got overturned by VAR, there is no way it's clear and obvious. Iv seen far more clear and obvious be ignored in recent years and we are meant to have a higher threshold now for VAR intervention.

It's another example of really how terrible VAR is, still very much at the whim of a ref making it up as they go along. Still dealing with the consequences of mistakes despite having VAR checking all the decisions.

VAR was meant to make things better, it has failed miserably it's arguably made things worse particuly around red cards and penalties. It's a complete lottery like it was before VAR but at least pre VAR you could forgive a ref for making a mistake now it really does just look like complete incompetence or cheating maybe a bit of both.
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Agree 100% about VAR making the game worse. And whether or not it’s failing due to incompetence or cheating is irrelevant. The exact same type of fan VAR was introduced to placate are now leading the charge with dark conspiracies about referees deliberately cheating. So even if the main issue here is incompetence, that’s not how it’s being perceived. And perception is everything. It has had the exact opposite effect to the one it was intended to have.
 
Not just that one, Liverpool had at least 4 generous decisions yesterday, could have conceded a penalty and Arsenal’s third should never have been disallowed. I generally don’t buy conspiracy theories but it’s getting hard to spend 4 hours watching matches get decided (badly) by referees.
 
Kingofwinners said:
Not just that one, Liverpool had at least 4 generous decisions yesterday, could have conceded a penalty and Arsenal’s third should never have been disallowed. I generally don’t buy conspiracy theories but it’s getting hard to spend 4 hours watching matches get decided (badly) by referees.
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De ligt actually goes through the player after missing the ball, worst decision in football history, Konate actually tips the ball away first and then goes through the player, nailed on penalty? The Chelsea keeper tipped the ball before clearing out Jones last week, no penalty, same as Konate, both correct decisions. I don't think De Ligt was a pen either, but De Light is proving himself a bit rash, gave the ref a decision to make.
 
Sunny Jim said:
Todays pentalty was the most absurd call I have seen in ages. And to think that the pentalty call came from a ref who didn’t think Dokus kick wasn’t enough to give a pen
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The most bizarre thing for me was that the ref did not think anything of it when he watched it close in real time.
The VAR room steps in and says ”David, you have to go take another look at it, we think it is a penalty!” He goes to the screen and watches Ings and de Light clash their legs, same force from both players, over and over again. He basically sees the same thing he saw in real time, only a bit clearer, but now he comes to the decision that was a clear error from him and a obvious pen. Just how.
 
Gordon S said:
He basically sees the same thing he saw in real time, only a bit clearer, but now he comes to the decision that was a clear error from him and a obvious pen. Just how.
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The ref knew it wasn't a pen. He looked incredibly sheepish when he eventually awarded it. It's simply a case of him not having the courage of his convictions.
 
Big VAR mistake on the red card in yesterday's Marseille - PSG
 
LochGormanAbú said:
De ligt actually goes through the player after missing the ball, worst decision in football history, Konate actually tips the ball away first and then goes through the player, nailed on penalty? The Chelsea keeper tipped the ball before clearing out Jones last week, no penalty, same as Konate, both correct decisions. I don't think De Ligt was a pen either, but De Light is proving himself a bit rash, gave the ref a decision to make.
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Thought you were just a new joiner winding us up, but you've been here since 2013.

Bizzare.
 
Remember the geese said:
The ref knew it wasn't a pen. He looked incredibly sheepish when he eventually awarded it. It's simply a case of him not having the courage of his convictions.
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It was actually kind of shocking how clearly his face showed it. He either had no clue or went against what he actually thought. Crazy
 
Dermot will usually give a clear indication that will happen next, if he defends the penalty then we'll know what Webb is thinking
 
Pexbo said:
A guess or have Sky released the analysis yet?
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It's usually quite telling, because Dermot defends like 99,9% of all VAR interventions, so the ones he doesn't defend are usually problematic.

https://www.skysports.com/football/...dents-from-the-weekends-premier-league-action

DERMOT SAYS: I didn't think it was a penalty. It wasn't an intervention. You look at it, it's a coming together.

De Ligt does little wrong, Ings goes into him. The referee plays on, he makes the right decision.

He gets sent to the monitor, and I was even confident there he would stand his ground. When he didn't, that was the biggest surprise for me.
 
Dermot is right, the ref has to be strong enough to look at it and say no let's carry on, I'd love to hear the audio for Oliver to convince him.
 
NotChatGPT said:
It's usually quite telling, because Dermot defends like 99,9% of all VAR interventions, so the ones he doesn't defend are usually problematic.

https://www.skysports.com/football/...dents-from-the-weekends-premier-league-action

DERMOT SAYS: I didn't think it was a penalty. It wasn't an intervention. You look at it, it's a coming together.

De Ligt does little wrong, Ings goes into him. The referee plays on, he makes the right decision.

He gets sent to the monitor, and I was even confident there he would stand his ground. When he didn't, that was the biggest surprise for me.
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Well that’s a shock.

What happens now is going to be interesting. Officials usually get demoted for a week but that’s never happened when they make an error against United. Will be interesting to see if Oliver is in any sort of trouble over this.


On the plus side surely Oliver now feels the microscope on him when officiating United matches?
 
So fed up with VAR. Pretty sure if VAR isn't removed in a somewhat near future I'll be completely done with "high tier" football.
 
Coote and Oliver are of the same snivelling little feckwit stock. You can just tell by looking at them.
 
Pexbo said:
I doubt that’s FPL. It’s probably an EPL app using the same branding and assets.
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Yeah, someone claiming to know said the same not long after that started going round.

A bloke called Dale Johson, says it's the Premier League Match Manager App. I don't know how he knows specifically what that looks like that but he's sort of in the know on VAR stuff. Reviews their decisions for ESPN and tweets about VAR a lot. Often think he's too defensive of their decisions but that's another story and I doubt he'd outright lie here.

Also said that personal phones etc. aren't allowed in the VAR room.

Would make sense that it has the same branding / colour schemes / similar formatting etc.

FPL players saying it doesn't look like any screen from that either. I play, but don't use the app so I'm not really in a position to judge on that one.

Did start to wonder exactly what the "Premier League Match Manager App" is and I'm still not sure! Found a web log in for it if anyone wants to hack their way in. :p

Apparently the league or each club has someone called a match manager who sits near the dugouts, would assume they do stuff like communicating things back the PL headquarters and it would make sense that VAR are in on it too. Most of it's probably just letting them know about goals, cards, subs, teamsheets etc. and making sure no admin kind of mistakes are made and proper protocols are followed.
 
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