VAR, Refs and Linesmen | General Discussion

Pogue Mahone said:
It’s actually quite difficult to work out his thought process for the red. Did he think it was violent? Or maybe went down the DOGSO rabbit hole that @Gio suggested?
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As far as I'm concerned It's definitely not DOGSO, being so far from goal with at least one covering defender, regardless of the 3 on 2 or whatever it could have been. There were too many variables at play for it to be deemed a clear goal scoring opportunity imo.

In any case, the decision was given for serious foul play. Looking at it again, I think I've changed my mind, he was right on top of it so he could well have seen the studs come down on the wolves player's instep. If he said to VAR that that's what he saw, and they had a look and saw that that's what happened, there's no real wriggle room to say the ref made a clear and obvious error.
 
SuperiorXI said:
How do you explain the disparity in yellow/red cards he gives v.s. city then v.s. the rest of them?
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Up until 2 months ago City had about 99.3% possession each game. I can imagine that helps a bit. Not all games are equal, so amounts of cards alone mean almost nothing without extremely detailed context.

I'm not saying teams aren't affected disproportinally at times, but I'm convinced it's just incompetence rather than a sinister plot. Referees are mostly rubbish. Which is understandable imho. It's a shite job. Everyone hates you and the guys who are with you om the pitch make in one week what you'll scrape together in your entire career. And they're also all trying to cheat you for the duration.

Until recently when it went private I enjoyed reading RAWK after a Liverpool loss and particularly the fact that they are very sure the FA is against them. Put that next to that 1 thread on here and it's like an exact mirror.
 
What about that call in the Rangers game just now? (If anyone watches Scottish football). I’m in a pub with a crap view. Ref decided it was a red (looked soft) but was told to go and have a look on the monitor which in most cases means his colleague thinks he got it wrong. He stuck to his decision though.
 
KirkDuyt said:
Up until 2 months ago City had about 99.3% possession each game. I can imagine that helps a bit. Not all games are equal, so amounts of cards alone mean almost nothing without extremely detailed context.

I'm not saying teams aren't affected disproportinally at times, but I'm convinced it's just incompetence rather than a sinister plot. Referees are mostly rubbish. Which is understandable imho. It's a shite job. Everyone hates you and the guys who are with you om the pitch make in one week what you'll scrape together in your entire career. And they're also all trying to cheat you for the duration.

Until recently when it went private I enjoyed reading RAWK after a Liverpool loss and particularly the fact that they are very sure the FA is against them. Put that next to that 1 thread on here and it's like an exact mirror.
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It's not like a fair bit of context hasn't been added to the debate, especially when it comes to Michael Oliver and Manchester City.

I don't think it's only down to incompetence. You have the Coote incident, Clattenburg literally bragged about what he did in the Tottenham - Chelsea match. Not sure why it's so unlikely that there's others like them. There's also a fair bit of discrepancy between outcomes. The referee that failed to award Wolves a penalty in our opening match against them last season got demoted as punishment. Fast forward to this season and neither feck up against us, which have been fairly big (West Ham penalty, Bruno's red card) has ended with anyone being demoted, they've all been back on the Premier League horse instantly after. Even Madley, after the shitshow of a performance he had in our FA cup game against Arsenal, didn't get demoted.
 
NotChatGPT said:
It's not like a fair bit of context hasn't been added to the debate, especially when it comes to Michael Oliver and Manchester City.

I don't think it's only down to incompetence. You have the Coote incident, Clattenburg literally bragged about what he did in the Tottenham - Chelsea match. Not sure why it's so unlikely that there's others like them. There's also a fair bit of discrepancy between outcomes. The referee that failed to award Wolves a penalty in our opening match against them last season got demoted as punishment. Fast forward to this season and neither feck up against us, which have been fairly big (West Ham penalty, Bruno's red card) has ended with anyone being demoted, they've all been back on the Premier League horse instantly after. Even Madley, after the shitshow of a performance he had in our FA cup game against Arsenal, didn't get demoted.
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You also had Mike Dean saying that he didn’t refer his mate to the screen because he didn’t want to make him look bad. Coupled with saying you don’t get penalties for certain fouls depending on the fixture when United played City.

Oliver has literally made up rules during games as one offs, booking Dalot twice for dissent in the same incident, sending off Martinelli for two fouls in the same phase of play and that time he booked Herrera for cumulative fouls committed by other players.
 
And all of that is extremely incompetent, but I find the notion that the FA or PGMOL or whatever you call it, is deliberately targetting one team is silly.

I'm sure all refs secretly like some clubs more than others, they're people after all, but the mistakes and inconsistencies just look like incompetence to me. Though I'm sure there's individual refs that actually let their preferences guide them. People are cnuts after all.
 
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NotChatGPT said:
It's not like a fair bit of context hasn't been added to the debate, especially when it comes to Michael Oliver and Manchester City.

I don't think it's only down to incompetence. You have the Coote incident, Clattenburg literally bragged about what he did in the Tottenham - Chelsea match. Not sure why it's so unlikely that there's others like them. There's also a fair bit of discrepancy between outcomes. The referee that failed to award Wolves a penalty in our opening match against them last season got demoted as punishment. Fast forward to this season and neither feck up against us, which have been fairly big (West Ham penalty, Bruno's red card) has ended with anyone being demoted, they've all been back on the Premier League horse instantly after. Even Madley, after the shitshow of a performance he had in our FA cup game against Arsenal, didn't get demoted.
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acnumber9 said:
You also had Mike Dean saying that he didn’t refer his mate to the screen because he didn’t want to make him look bad. Coupled with saying you don’t get penalties for certain fouls depending on the fixture when United played City.

Oliver has literally made up rules during games as one offs, booking Dalot twice for dissent in the same incident, sending off Martinelli for two fouls in the same phase of play and that time he booked Herrera for cumulative fouls committed by other players.
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These are the points that KirkDuyt is making, incompetence rather than an agenda against any one club. I mainly have a look at the Liverpool, City, Arsenal and RedCafe forums (won't mention Rangers), but everyone of the forums believe they are being singled out and all will list pretty much weekly examples of bad decisions against them and then the odd will really bad ones. It's quite funny that each fan base believe it's a conspiracy against them. If anything I believe the bigger clubs get away with more than the smaller clubs, less pressure on the refs in general against the smaller clubs when making big decisions against them.
 
Gio said:
Doherty has burst past Lewis-Skelly who is out of the game. It is a clear 3 v 2 where both Arsenal defenders will probably try and close him down and all he has to do is slip it wide and there are two Wolves players sprinting clear. Saliba has the best chance of covering the runners, but even he's a couple of yards behind. The next deepest Arsenal players are the guys out near the touchline who will struggle to recover the extra distance. Wolves would really have to mess that counter up not to have a goalscoring opportunity.
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That is absolutely ludicrous.
This is a Wolves team in the bottom 3 of the league. They're not peak Rooney and Ronaldo that are going to maximise opportunities against far better teams, with precise football 80 yards from goal :lol:
 
LochGormanAbú said:
These are the points that KirkDuyt is making, incompetence rather than an agenda against any one club. I mainly have a look at the Liverpool, City, Arsenal and RedCafe forums (won't mention Rangers), but everyone of the forums believe they are being singled out and all will list pretty much weekly examples of bad decisions against them and then the odd will really bad ones. It's quite funny that each fan base believe it's a conspiracy against them. If anything I believe the bigger clubs get away with more than the smaller clubs, less pressure on the refs in general against the smaller clubs when making big decisions against them.
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Not sure what you’re on about, i havent claimed there is a grand scheme that the PGMOL is behind. I am however claiming that certain referees are deciding matters based on preference rather than rules. Nor have i claimed its specifically against the club i support.
 
Anybody claiming DOGSO on the arsenal red knows absolutely nothing about the game and should have their account just reset to newbie status
 
Gio said:
Doherty has burst past Lewis-Skelly who is out of the game. It is a clear 3 v 2 where both Arsenal defenders will probably try and close him down and all he has to do is slip it wide and there are two Wolves players sprinting clear. Saliba has the best chance of covering the runners, but even he's a couple of yards behind. The next deepest Arsenal players are the guys out near the touchline who will struggle to recover the extra distance. Wolves would really have to mess that counter up not to have a goalscoring opportunity.
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who gives a shit, thats not why he got the red card
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Cynicism isn’t in the laws of the game but it’s natural for referees to take a dimmer view of challenges that have zero intention of playing the ball. And I think that’s fair enough.

This is a good example of a poor decision made in real time (I think 99 times out of 100 a good referee gives a yellow card there) that VAR isn’t capable of fixing. Because obsessive rewatching of extreme slow motion close up replays does the opposite of what it’s supposed to. We all knew this before VAR was introduced though. Because we watched ex pros on MOTD consistently disagree with each other after watching similar footage every weekend. It’s a complete myth that these replays will uncover the “truth” of incidents like this.
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Agreed. I'd be very surprised if Oliver saw the studs on the shin, but as soon as VAR sees it then it won't be overturned.

It's a strange one because I do think more should be to punish these types of challenges, but I'd be fuming if that was given against United.
 
NotChatGPT said:
Not sure what you’re on about, i havent claimed there is a grand scheme that the PGMOL is behind. I am however claiming that certain referees are deciding matters based on preference rather than rules. Nor have i claimed its specifically against the club i support.
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I didn't say you did claim it was specifically against the club you support, and I agree some refs will probably make some decisions because of preference, probably sub conscious bias. That still comes down to incompetence rather than deliberately reffing any team differently.
 
LochGormanAbú said:
I didn't say you did claim it was specifically against the club you support, and I agree some refs will probably make some decisions because of preference, probably sub conscious bias. That still comes down to incompetence rather than deliberately reffing any team differently.
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You literally have referees admitting the opposite of what you are saying
 
Jack-C20 said:
What about that call in the Rangers game just now? (If anyone watches Scottish football). I’m in a pub with a crap view. Ref decided it was a red (looked soft) but was told to go and have a look on the monitor which in most cases means his colleague thinks he got it wrong. He stuck to his decision though.
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Terrible call. They just showed him the same angle he’d already seen on the pitch. Should get rescinded and the panel that reviews it are likely to vote 5-0 that it was the wrong decision.
 
Gio said:
Terrible call. They just showed him the same angle he’d already seen on the pitch. Should get rescinded and the panel that reviews it are likely to vote 5-0 that it was the wrong decision.
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even as a Celtic fan, that was a very strange one
 
Sandikan said:
That is absolutely ludicrous.
This is a Wolves team in the bottom 3 of the league. They're not peak Rooney and Ronaldo that are going to maximise opportunities against far better teams, with precise football 80 yards from goal :lol:
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I’ve not said it’s a red card. I’ve said that the gung-ho way that Arsenal set their team up for corners is creating higher-risk counter-attack opportunities which could be looked upon differently by referees when the defending team go for the standard yellow card foul.

Talking about ‘80 yards from goal’ therefore has a different meaning now, than when it did when teams would have a man or three back on the half-way line.
NotChatGPT said:
who gives a shit, thats not why he got the red card
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We know that. It’s a separate discussion.
 
LochGormanAbú said:
These are the points that KirkDuyt is making, incompetence rather than an agenda against any one club. I mainly have a look at the Liverpool, City, Arsenal and RedCafe forums (won't mention Rangers), but everyone of the forums believe they are being singled out and all will list pretty much weekly examples of bad decisions against them and then the odd will really bad ones. It's quite funny that each fan base believe it's a conspiracy against them. If anything I believe the bigger clubs get away with more than the smaller clubs, less pressure on the refs in general against the smaller clubs when making big decisions against them.
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Choosing to ignore rules is not just an issue of competence. They’re deliberately influencing the outcome of games.
 
Michael Oliver is genuinely untouchable in how they are backing him for this (forget his other horrific decisions, but this ones the worst).
What does he have on them? More coke-fuelled videos on the right people?
 
Gio said:
Terrible call. They just showed him the same angle he’d already seen on the pitch. Should get rescinded and the panel that reviews it are likely to vote 5-0 that it was the wrong decision.
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As I said, my view was dubious at best but it looked incredibly harsh to me. Probably the first time I can remember that a ref has been told to look at it in the monitor and stuck with the on field decision. Would love to hear the discussion afterwards between the referee and the VAR referee and why they disagreed with each other.
 
acnumber9 said:
Choosing to ignore rules is not just an issue of competence. They’re deliberately influencing the outcome of games.
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Then you're saying Oliver along with the VAR team deliberately cheated to send the player off? I don't think it's a red card, but I don't honestly believe they conspired between them all to cheat, terrible decision, huge level of incompetence.
 
LochGormanAbú said:
Then you're saying Oliver along with the VAR team deliberately cheated to send the player off? I don't think it's a red card, but I don't honestly believe they conspired between them all to cheat, terrible decision, huge level of incompetence.
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If one conspiracy is ever proven to be true in PL it will be that Michael Oliver was under city's influence. In the case of yesterday though, I think it's all a symptom of Michael Oliver overthinking because of his own ego. When I say overthinking I mean within the space of milliseconds, the way our brains work based on our personalities and experiences - Oliver thought he saw something and wanted to prove he wasn't too scared to give arsenal another red. Hes an utter narcissist and the manner of so many of his reds and var interventions prove it. I fully believe that he thinks fans consider him the same way we consider players when really we want them to be as invisible as possible.

He needs a massive massive reality check from those above him as hes completely lost the run of how to referee big moments
 
SER19 said:
If one conspiracy is ever proven to be true in PL it will be that Michael Oliver was under city's influence. In the case of yesterday though, I think it's all a symptom of Michael Oliver overthinking because of his own ego. When I say overthinking I mean within the space of milliseconds, the way our brains work based on our personalities and experiences - Oliver thought he saw something and wanted to prove he wasn't too scared to give arsenal another red. Hes an utter narcissist and the manner of so many of his reds and var interventions prove it. I fully believe that he thinks fans consider him the same way we consider players when really we want them to be as invisible as possible.

He needs a massive massive reality check from those above him as hes completely lost the run of how to referee big moments
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The Arsenal red isn't even that harsh, studs to the top of the foot at fast speed, could cause an injury, not much to complain about and VAR never getting involved due to the nature of the contact.

I guess you never know, the Barcelona ref bribery case is still meandering it's way through the Spanish courts after it turned out they paid £6.5m to VP of referees...
 
Mb194dc said:
The Arsenal red isn't even that harsh, studs to the top of the foot at fast speed, could cause an injury, not much to complain about and VAR never getting involved due to the nature of the contact.

I guess you never know, the Barcelona ref bribery case is still meandering it's way through the Spanish courts after it turned out they paid £6.5m to VP of referees...
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my thoughts on the arsenal red are above. thought it was absolutely mental.
 
Mb194dc said:
The Arsenal red isn't even that harsh, studs to the top of the foot at fast speed, could cause an injury, not much to complain about and VAR never getting involved due to the nature of the contact.
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Ugarte has just committed a foul that fits this description. Absolutely no one is calling for him to be sent off (and good). Absolutely absurd decision and it's rightfully being mocked.
 
SER19 said:
If one conspiracy is ever proven to be true in PL it will be that Michael Oliver was under city's influence. In the case of yesterday though, I think it's all a symptom of Michael Oliver overthinking because of his own ego. When I say overthinking I mean within the space of milliseconds, the way our brains work based on our personalities and experiences - Oliver thought he saw something and wanted to prove he wasn't too scared to give arsenal another red. Hes an utter narcissist and the manner of so many of his reds and var interventions prove it. I fully believe that he thinks fans consider him the same way we consider players when really we want them to be as invisible as possible.

He needs a massive massive reality check from those above him as hes completely lost the run of how to referee big moments
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Oliver is just a terrible referee pushed far beyond his station and he's only been emboldened by the lack of action over him taking a big pay day from the City owners.
 
LochGormanAbú said:
Then you're saying Oliver along with the VAR team deliberately cheated to send the player off? I don't think it's a red card, but I don't honestly believe they conspired between them all to cheat, terrible decision, huge level of incompetence.
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I didn’t say Oliver was on that occasion. I’m saying he’s heavily influenced by bias and his paymasters. He also just makes up rules. Refs all stick together and we have countless examples of it.
 
Egalitard said:
Ugarte has just committed a foul that fits this description. Absolutely no one is calling for him to be sent off (and good). Absolutely absurd decision and it's rightfully being mocked.
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Putting studs in to the top of the foot is dangerous, potential foot breaker depending on the force. From a distance it looks like the usual tactical foul yellow, but close up can see why red.

Oliver might be a shite ref, but not much wrong with that call yesterday.
 
Mb194dc said:
Putting studs in to the top of the foot is dangerous, potential foot breaker depending on the force. From a distance it looks like the usual tactical foul yellow, but close up can see why red.

Oliver might be a shite ref, but not much wrong with that call yesterday.
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Just wondering, has there been a single ex player / pundit who has thought it was a red card?

I'm just wondering if I'm being biased as an Arsenal fan seeing it as a farce of a decision, or are rival fans being biased saying they can see why it was given?
 
GoonerBear said:
Just wondering, has there been a single ex player / pundit who has thought it was a red card?

I'm just wondering if I'm being biased as an Arsenal fan seeing it as a farce of a decision, or are rival fans being biased saying they can see why it was given?
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Any team would burn the stadium down if they got this red card. Trying to pass this as a potential foot-breaker is just wumming.
 
GoonerBear said:
Just wondering, has there been a single ex player / pundit who has thought it was a red card?

I'm just wondering if I'm being biased as an Arsenal fan seeing it as a farce of a decision, or are rival fans being biased saying they can see why it was given?
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I just call what I see, including against Chelsea. Studs in to top of foot risks a red, depending on the force. Which is why VAR left it.

The contact is in the youtube highlights very clear.
 
Mb194dc said:
I just call what I see, including against Chelsea. Studs in to top of foot risks a red, depending on the force. Which is why VAR left it.

The contact is in the youtube highlights very clear.
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Mate, he doesn't actually plant his foot in top of his foot, there's slight contact between the heel of Lewis Skelly and the top of the guys foot, but there was way more force and a full foot plant on the tackle that Gomes made on Timber, yet that only warranted a yellow card?!

If you've ever played football you know exactly what Lewis Skelly was doing, it's a cynical deliberate trip to stop a break away that you see every week on parks up and down the country, and if someone was sent off for it it would probably result in it kicking off at the side of the park.
 
I’m honestly unsure how much more I can put up with. We get players booked almost instantly all fecking season and yet whoever we’re playing get about 8 warnings before a card comes.

Changes the way games are played.
 
awop said:
Any team would burn the stadium down if they got this red card. Trying to pass this as a potential foot-breaker is just wumming.
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How many tackles in the past 40 years have broken a bone? People really overestimate what it takes to break a leg.
 
That offside highlights why some common sense needs to be applied to the use of VAR for offsides.

The offside rule was never designed or introduced to rule out goals because someone's shoulder was 5mm offside.
 
The VAR review of offside should really be changed.

The spirit of the law is to avoid players staying up the pitch and just waiting for the ball, it’s not there to prevent goals because the attacker is faster to go towards the goal than the defender
 
I'm amazed that people have an issue with that offside call. It's one of the few objective laws and I'm glad its being consistently called correctly. I'd be fuming if that goal had stood against us.
 
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