VAR, Refs and Linesmen | General Discussion

These rules are bollocks. DeLigt has less time to react than the Wolves guy. Joelinton got away with one. They just picking and choosing randomly.
 
There's that famous officiating consistency again.

Fair enough to give the De Ligt handball if they're always given. But that call and the Romero decision proves that proximity is usually taken into account. Unless Utd can be punished, obviously.
 
So the wolves player “didn’t have time to get his arm out of the way” (5 yards away) so no penalty. But De Light had all the time in the world to (1 yard away) so penalty. I mean what the actual feck?
 
So the wolves player “didn’t have time to get his arm out of the way” (5 yards away) so no penalty. But De Light had all the time in the world to (1 yard away) so penalty. I mean what the actual feck?

Not watching the game, but where was his arm/hand? Think it was given yesterday because De Ligt's arms were up
 
So the wolves player “didn’t have time to get his arm out of the way” (5 yards away) so no penalty. But De Light had all the time in the world to (1 yard away) so penalty. I mean what the actual feck?
Is unnatural position still a thing?
 
I don't care if he's "trying" to move his hand out of the way, he actually ends up creating a bigger silhouette. De Ligt's handball looked more like a reflex yesterday, not a decision. I think both are penalties.
 
Err, I’m sure De Ligt was trying to get his hand out of the way from a shorter distance.
No way he meant to handball it!
 
So the wolves player “didn’t have time to get his arm out of the way” (5 yards away) so no penalty. But De Light had all the time in the world to (1 yard away) so penalty. I mean what the actual feck?
His arm was out of the way originally. He actually moved it away from his body as the ball came to him.
Incompetence at it’s finest.
 
Looks like his arm moves towards it? It went pretty quick but it looked like he panicked and moved into it with his arm spreading out. Wouldn't have been an outrage if it was given.

His arm was kind of tucked in and he moved out again. It'll be the usual hand was down by his and it wasn't an unatural movement.
 
Err, I’m sure De Ligt was trying to get his hand out of the way from a shorter distance.
No way he meant to handball it!

Thanks to VAR we’ve basically done away with the need for handball to be intentional. Which is a nonsense but that’s VAR for you. All about bollox like natural and unnatural position. And whether we like it or not they’ve decided that hands near your hips is a lot more natural than hands above your shoulders.
 
Thought the De Ligt one was bollocks but it's down to the way the officials have been told to interpret the handball rule rather than anything else.

It's made impossible for them because the "unnatural position" thing is a nonsense when people are running and jumping about everywhere.

people keep going back to that Romero one but that was just a pathetic piece of refereeing as he literally saved the ball with his hand on purpose. It's an example of incompetent officiating, not a piece of case law to refer other less obvious decisions back to..
 
Not watching the game, but where was his arm/hand? Think it was given yesterday because De Ligt's arms were up
Just quoting the VAR explanation for not giving tonight’s penalty. Position of arm not referred to I believe.
 
The obvious solution for these types of unintentional natural/unnatural handballs is to award an indirect free-kick so the punishment is proportionate to the crime.
 
The rule should be that the player has to either show intent that they tried to stop it with ther hand/arm or that their hand/arm was in an unnatural position (therefore making themselves bigger and obstructing where the ball can go)

The wolves one and the De Ligt one was not a penalty because both were obviously unintentional and accidental.
 
I don't care if he's "trying" to move his hand out of the way, he actually ends up creating a bigger silhouette. De Ligt's handball looked more like a reflex yesterday, not a decision. I think both are penalties.
that’s the problem with the current version of the law. you can starfish yourself and not move towards the ball and it can be interpreted as ball to hand. they’ve made the rule subjective, which is always the basis of a shit rule. if it hits your arm or hand, it should be handball. doesn’t matter if it was deliberate or not. the majority of fouls are genuine attempts to win the ball and unintentional. should we just let them go too?
 
The obvious solution for these types of unintentional natural/unnatural handballs is to award an indirect free-kick so the punishment is proportionate to the crime.

Plus you get the added bonus of the absolute madness of indirect free kicks.
 
The obvious solution for these types of unintentional natural/unnatural handballs is to award an indirect free-kick so the punishment is proportionate to the crime.

This is such an obvious rule change, no idea why it's not been trialed yet.

Any handball that's not directly preventing a goal should be an IDFK... at least then you can just start punishing any old handball and you don't have to worry about intentional/unintentional or natural/unnatural etc.
 
Was just thinking about this and couldn't agree more. Unless you Suarez it, a penalty is never a just punishment for a handball in the box.

I actually kind of question if penalties are ruining football in general. It feels like an ever increasing number of matches are decided by either penalties or soft-red cards.
 
Was just thinking about this and couldn't agree more. Unless you Suarez it, a penalty is never a just punishment for a handball in the box.

I actually kind of question if penalties are ruining football in general. It feels like an ever increasing number of matches are decided by either penalties or soft-red cards.
Penalties aren’t the problem. VAR is. Its use is so arbitrary that even if the refs were efficient it wouldn’t be good enough. The rules have been changed to suit it, rather than the game itself.
 
The obvious solution for these types of unintentional natural/unnatural handballs is to award an indirect free-kick so the punishment is proportionate to the crime.

That’s one solution. Another is to continue to deal with them the way they were for decades, without anything like this amount of controversy and frustration. Alllow the referee to do his job and use his experience and intuition to decide if a handball is deliberate or not and only penalise the deliberate ones. As per the laws of the game.
 
Love the indirect free kick idea. Deciding what was intentional or not would still be subjective, and arguing whether it directly prevented a goal or not would still be subjective love subjective. But I’d imagine a huge amount of game-changing penalties would be turned into IDFKs in the corner of the box, or right outside 6-yard box, with added hilarity.

Even in these fantastic redcafe circumstances, though, I reckon De Ligt’s was still a pen: unintentional, but Salah’s header was going towards the far corner and Onana can only save shots directly at him.
 
Was just thinking about this and couldn't agree more. Unless you Suarez it, a penalty is never a just punishment for a handball in the box.

I actually kind of question if penalties are ruining football in general. It feels like an ever increasing number of matches are decided by either penalties or soft-red cards.

You could say the same for penalties in general I suppose. You get some when a player is fouled when clean through or about to shoot, also a lot when the imminent goal threat isn't that large. A foul where a player can only really cross it and everyone looks like they're well marked, or one at the corner of the box, sometimes even running away from goal etc.

They will happen from time to time like that and they pop up seemingly randomly. Could be in a game where one team is dominating, and there's a sense that the pressure caused it to happen, feels quite just especially if they're already winning 2 or 3-0. A penalty like where it's 0-0 or 1-1 and it decides the game, there's more of sense that they didn't really earn it and got the win almost through a random occurence compared to if they'd have put together a really nice move and were fouled when someone is clean through on goal.

Don't think I'd want them to give free kicks for those sort of handballs if it came down to it or even these sorts of fouls. Football is low-scoring enough.

Pondered if it might be something they consider one day though, especially now we have xG and the like. You deny an 0.10 xg of scoring in the box? We'll double it and give you 0.20 chance to score instead of a penalty when the threat is lower. Sort of a resotrative justice model with some additional punishment while not going as far as always giving a pen. Wouldn't be a fan of it though, think that lack of goals would make it a much worse spectacle.
 
that’s the problem with the current version of the law. you can starfish yourself and not move towards the ball and it can be interpreted as ball to hand. they’ve made the rule subjective, which is always the basis of a shit rule. if it hits your arm or hand, it should be handball. doesn’t matter if it was deliberate or not. the majority of fouls are genuine attempts to win the ball and unintentional. should we just let them go too?
Where's the sexual innuendo?
 
The problem is that it's easy now to give calls against United or not even bother taking the time to double check contentious decisions that would benefit United (Like the Nunez shoulder into DeLigts face or possible handball by the Liverpool player in their box from a corner.) If we lose because of a wrong decision, the narrative is "United in freefall" or "These players aren't good enough" or "Is Amorim the right man?"
Take those decisions against Liverpool at the weekend for example, it allows the referees to take the cowardly way out. If Oliver or VAR gave that penalty or sent Nunez off, they know all the focus would be on that. However, by not doing it, they know the same focus will not be given from the media for United's perspective hence allowing them to shy away from big decisions.
It allowed them to give the penalty against DeLigt when his hand was in a natural position for the movement he was making (It wasn't intentional). However, the next night, Forest don't get a penalty due to the reason being "Ait-Nouri didn't have enough time to move his arm out of the way" when he was further away from the ball than DeLigt ffs.
 
I think we should reallly stop complaining about this penalty as it is as clear it gets… there are a LOT of other decision which we were hard done by

The only time we got lucky as far as i can remember was against wolves last year when onana clattered into the striker… and it was discussed for like two weeks
 
Current main story on Sky: 'VAR took SEVEN seconds to agree Brighton pen vs Arsenal'.

It felt like there was an even quicker check for the 'non-foul' on Hojlund by Dias. I remember when the Sky commentator said VAR had checked and cleared it and that was within a time frame where they could have only watched one replay, two maximum.
 
Current main story on Sky: 'VAR took SEVEN seconds to agree Brighton pen vs Arsenal'.

It felt like there was an even quicker check for the 'non-foul' on Hojlund by Dias. I remember when the Sky commentator said VAR had checked and cleared it and that was within a time frame where they could have only watched one replay, two maximum.

It does show the value in manager's whinging about decisions though. Arteta loves a moan and the media seem to be running with the story that one of the more obvious penos you will see was some how controversial.
 
It does show the value in manager's whinging about decisions though. Arteta loves a moan and the media seem to be running with the story that one of the more obvious penos you will see was some how controversial.
100%. Arteta's weird 'I feel sick to be a part of this' rant last season had pundits over-analysing Newcastle's winner vs Arsenal for a while. Same with Liverpool threatening to 'explore all options' after VAR made a mess of the offside call vs Spurs, leading to several refereeing decisions in their favour over the subsequent months. Unfortunately we've not had any managers who are remotely whingey post-Mourinho.
 
"He's holding something else here. I'm going red."


No wonder players feign injury and roll around a dozen times screaming in "agony" when that's how simple it is to fool a ref like "Tayls.".

 
"He's holding something else here. I'm going red."


No wonder players feign injury and roll around a dozen times screaming in "agony" when that's how simple it is to fool a ref like "Tayls.".


A multibillion pound industry and these absolute morons are running the show? Honestly it I just find it utterly staggering that they can only find people this thick and this egotistical when the matches they oversee are often worth tens of millions of pounds. I just can’t fathom it, in any other industry they would be laughed out of the interview room.