Yeah because it was so great before var
VAR, Refs and Linesmen | General Discussion
- Thread starter Samid
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I’m sure this isn’t a novel opinion but I much preferred it when we didn’t have VAR. Yes there were mistakes, but we still have them now, at least the game flowed and you didn’t have to wait to celebrate a goal. Can we please just go back to how it was before and accept there’ll be mistakes. It’s sucking the fun out of the game for little benefit.
Somebody should make a poll.
Somebody should make a poll.
At the end of the day it’s as simple as the people they’ve got refereeing are incompetent. It’s not a system issue and the process is largely fine. It’s the clowns running it. Nothing will change until ex players start training to be refs or they are held to a MUCH higher standard.
Yes it was
Problem with VAR is that it is only as good as the people who administer over it. When they make errors like today they need to give an account of themselves. I feel each team should have one separate review call each game available to them, where they can force the refs to look at it.
You're being sarcastic but it was better.
We still get gormless mistakes now just as we did before VAR but now we get the added crapness of not being able to celebrate a goal going in for fear a toenail was offside in the buildup and it gets ruled out.
Bit pointless if they make decisions like today
I think the argument is more that is still operates as now, but each team has an option to ask them to look again/harder.
Strange that you should say that as he was a South Yorkshire police officer for more than 15 years!
Offsides should be simple.
Line on the last defender and check if an attacker is beyond that line. It really shouldn’t be difficult to implement this and they’re still getting it wrong.
I completely understand the difficulties when the all is played by a defender to an offside attacker and whether this is intentional or if the player is deemed to have been in control of the ball etc. this is where it becomes more challenging but simple offside calls should never be wrong.
The Brighton one and the Arsenal one should never happen.
When it comes to handball it then becomes more opinion based. How we didn’t get a penalty today for Soucek saving a shot is beyond belief. His hand was not planted and the ball was going towards goal. It’s a penalty.
Handball rule needs simplified though as referees Simply do not have the ability to implement the rule.
Line on the last defender and check if an attacker is beyond that line. It really shouldn’t be difficult to implement this and they’re still getting it wrong.
I completely understand the difficulties when the all is played by a defender to an offside attacker and whether this is intentional or if the player is deemed to have been in control of the ball etc. this is where it becomes more challenging but simple offside calls should never be wrong.
The Brighton one and the Arsenal one should never happen.
When it comes to handball it then becomes more opinion based. How we didn’t get a penalty today for Soucek saving a shot is beyond belief. His hand was not planted and the ball was going towards goal. It’s a penalty.
Handball rule needs simplified though as referees Simply do not have the ability to implement the rule.
I strongly dislike Arsenal and Toney was my big differential in FPL so I’ll take this goal gladly, but it really is a joke Mason is still allowed in the job continuously fecking up in such crucial moments. If I were a gunner I’d be furious as feck, this was a blatant offside.
Awful day for VAR refs overall. There has to be some accountability I guess
Awful day for VAR refs overall. There has to be some accountability I guess
I don't buy this argument and never have.
There are subjective calls in football all the time, and sometimes decisions where the nature of the incident means the referee cant really win, but there are a couple of problems with using this as an excuse to get things wrong.
Firstly, you can have subjectively and consistency at the same time, and it actually isn't difficult. All it requires is adult communication between a team of people. In this case the referees. There are many jobs especially in authorative roles where this is a huge factor and is managed accordingly. With premier league officials however, not only is one ref not consistent with another, but the same team of officials won't be consistent from one game to the next, or even within the same game, or even within the same incident (for example, when Martial and Lamella slapped each other in the face and one got sent off while the other didnt). This would be like the police catching you and your mate with a bag of cocaine each, letting your mate off and arresting and charging you, while the while thing is broadcast to several million people. It wouldn't happen because they wouldn't get away with being that corrupt/incompetent.
Secondly, some of the "subjective" calls they get wrong really aren't that subjective unless you're either an idiot or are getting it wrong on purpose. For example the Salah goal against Wolves, that ridiculous tackle on Weghorst in the league cup (I think), the Middlesbrough handball goal. Anything can be subjective if you take the subjectivity bar so high that it stretches to just pretending not to see things or reinventing the rules to fit around your decision.
VAR doesn't create the illusion of objectivity, it just allows officials to review an incident with factual video footage. It's impossible for VAR to make it harder to get a decision right because it has no ability to be deceiving or make the rules anymore subjective. It literaly just shows you what actually happened. What's happening is its exposing the inconsistency and plain incompetence of the officials because it is frequently being used to change correct decisions to wrong ones, or enforce unique one off interpretations of the rules that sometimes are severely blurring the lines between "interpretation" and "just making something up to give the decision you want to give".
And actually they can't even get the "factual" offside decisions right as we have seen today.
I think if you had a system of quality control with officials that instead of being designed to try and ban criticism of them, was designed to make sure that someone like Antony Taylor couldn't become a PL referee in the first place (due to there being a requirement to not be really rubbish at it), you'd find most of the nonsense decisions would disappear and there would be consistency and common sense. There would still be controversial incidents because that just happens, but they would be the ones where whatever decision the official made, it would be criticised. Not the ones where one team is denied 2 points because the official forgot to look at the replay properly, or a team has a player sent off because someone grabbed someone else's collar for 1.2 seconds.
I just wish we could get back to being able to immediately celebrate a goal.
The game is being neutralised too much now
The game is being neutralised too much now
Terrible stuff. Usually they get the offsides right so it's still a net positive and I hate seeing well timed moves in goals flagged for offside pre VAR.
We need some better people applying the rules and maybe some better technology and even AI picking up players that have to be deselected before carrying on. I recall that Juve game with the player in the far corner out of shot making it not offside, an AI could pick that up for attention.
I thought recently I saw the tennis hawk eye/goal area tech being used across a whole pitch but it seems we're back to poor video angles with lines and dots manually applied. A fully realized 3D render you can rotate and zoom out would be much better. Not sure if this is achievable yet on a football pitch across the league.
We need some better people applying the rules and maybe some better technology and even AI picking up players that have to be deselected before carrying on. I recall that Juve game with the player in the far corner out of shot making it not offside, an AI could pick that up for attention.
I thought recently I saw the tennis hawk eye/goal area tech being used across a whole pitch but it seems we're back to poor video angles with lines and dots manually applied. A fully realized 3D render you can rotate and zoom out would be much better. Not sure if this is achievable yet on a football pitch across the league.
100% correct.
I have been preaching this since the start. You are correct about VAR should be used in clear cut objective offenses only. That’s why instant replay in the NFL works so good. Nothing subjective. VAR is a failure in this league and no matter what experts they bring in to run it someone will always interpret things different than someone else like we all do. It’s never gonna work and it’s getting worse.
Still makes no difference to subjective calls. That soucek handball can still go either way. VAR is the most pointless buzz killing thing to ever happen to the game in my opinion. Most calls are a lottery and that will never change.
Tbf one of the refs is Australian. He sent off some poor bloke for "running aggressively towards the ref"
The delight of on-field referees, they'll get total control again in 6 months
I agree completely.
Is it overzealous to suggest Mason should literally be suspended for such a feck up? I would be furious.
Can I just shock you - I like VAR…
VAR is a step forward in the right direction. It starts to eliminate unnecessary human mistakes. It just feels silly people want to go back where referee had 100% of power, and can hide behind excuse of to make decision in split second events. Now they can't have excuse for incompetency.
Terrible day for Var and Refs. Barnes Leicester first goal was onside in my opinion same as the Brighton goal wrongly called off because Var didn't want to see the other defender. The Chelsea's penalty when photos show the ref couldn't see it happening , he was running away denying the penalty then var get its wrong. West ham goal v Arsenal and although the Chelsea, Arsenal's ones work in our favour it still wrong like the numerous ones against us. Var/refs are poor in England and it is broken. They are getting as a percentage, too many calls wrong. What for the life of me is Lemina's sending off for Wolves.
it hasn't eliminated them though that's the point
every weekend they make a huge feckup somehow
Why people blame VAR for that, instead of whoever making decisions or how ref interpret the law? I love that VAR start showing people how stupid some of referees are.
In the past, people could only fuming and resign to fate, when the replays from 100 angles showed that the ref making mistakes. Now at least some refs can't hide if they still fecking up their decisions.
it's the same thing
Yes, it is the ability of the manager to put the whole refereeing team of that day on the spot and make them stick their necks out even further on something that is obvious to all. There is not enough accountability here in my opinion...and this will keep happening. Give the manager of both teams a little power on one key decision during the game.
I thought the Arsenal one was bad...i had not seen the highlights from the Brighton game yet.. VAR operators may need sobriety tests in the future at this rate.
Must be nice to be able to say you "forgot to do your job" and nothing happens
I was watching the Arsenal game live yesterday and it was clear in real time that there were two or three tight calls in the build up to the Arsenal goal. How a professional referee allow that goal to stand after getting the privilege of numerous video replays is beyond belief. This isn't even a subjective call, which they also regularly feck up, this is a cut and dry offside that will probably now result in title going to the cheats on the blue side of Manchester. Huge, huge mistake and I am not able to get over it. Heads would roll for such a crucial mistake in any other line of work.
Same here. I don't know why it's implemented terribly in the Prem. It's pure incompetence. Either that or they're using it the same way the WWE uses promos, as a storytelling gimmick.
Just saw the highlights of the Brighton game. How the hell was MacAllister not sent off?!!
It is because there was nowhere near the content at the World Cup and the bigger games didn’t have massive controversy.
Wasn’t there a horrendously bad decision in one of the England group games?
I've watched the Brentford goal multiple times and still can't see who's supposed to be offside? There were a few players in offside positions who got nowhere near the ball but it looks a perfectly good goal to me. Every player who touched the ball for Brentford was onside when it was played by the player before.
The worst decision in that game is the non-existent foul given against Mbeumo when he "scored" early on in the game.
This is why VAR is so difficult to implement. The rules of football are so vague (and those implementing them are too stupid to understand interpretations) that 2 people can watch an incident and both genuinely believe the complete opposite of each other.
The Soucek handball was a judgement call too. The interpretations around handball change every 5 minutes so nobody knows what is supposed to be a "deliberate handball" anymore.
Estupinan's goal vs Palace looked nowhere near offside live or from any replay and was one of the worst mistakes I have ever seen. That VAR operator should be sacked immediately.
But the biggest controversy of the weekend seems to be the Brentford goal because Arteta got a bit upset. "Replay the game" they say as if it's an error so gross that VAR should be abolished. It wasn't even an incorrect decision. But football reporting and fan reactions don't have any interest in fairness. That's why VAR will struggle to work in football.
The worst decision in that game is the non-existent foul given against Mbeumo when he "scored" early on in the game.
This is why VAR is so difficult to implement. The rules of football are so vague (and those implementing them are too stupid to understand interpretations) that 2 people can watch an incident and both genuinely believe the complete opposite of each other.
The Soucek handball was a judgement call too. The interpretations around handball change every 5 minutes so nobody knows what is supposed to be a "deliberate handball" anymore.
Estupinan's goal vs Palace looked nowhere near offside live or from any replay and was one of the worst mistakes I have ever seen. That VAR operator should be sacked immediately.
But the biggest controversy of the weekend seems to be the Brentford goal because Arteta got a bit upset. "Replay the game" they say as if it's an error so gross that VAR should be abolished. It wasn't even an incorrect decision. But football reporting and fan reactions don't have any interest in fairness. That's why VAR will struggle to work in football.
This.
Looking at that Brenford goal the only tight decision is the last part of the goal, where Toney heads the ball down.
Also the obstruction before the freekick, was my main worry watching it live, it's where the VAR replay looked at but with a wrong wording of " checking offside" instead of 'obstruction play'
From the overhead angle, shown live on TV, he wasn't offside and VAR didn't draw lines to it. I didn't think it was offside.
The viral still picture of that offside, looks more like an angle issue than being a mistake.
The great mistake was the calling of a foul just before Brenford scored. That's the biggest mistake in that game.
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The penultimate pass is the one where from the camera angle it looks like the player is offside.
Said it before but they need to stop the referee being in full control on VAR decisions. If he’s made a mistake the VAR referee should take control of the decision, just as the do in rugby. They then tell the pitch referee what to do. It’s about getting the right decision. Why is it football referee need full control? They should also be mic’ed up with fans able to hear how their decision is being made. There is simply too much protection towards refs in football and it’s got to the stage where I feel there has to be some form of match fixing going on to create entertainment.
With regard to offside and handballs. In some respects it’s not the referees fault. The rules keep changing to the point that fans and pundits don’t actually know what the rules are. Peter Walton on BT is pretty good at explaining the current rules when a VAR decision is being made and it’s crazy what the rules are. Overly complex and gives the referee licence to pick and choose on a decision. Again why would they do this unless they want the referees to have the ability to interpret rules (Real Sociedad penalty decision is a prime example). Go back to the root cause, simplify the rules.
I also think offsides need to have a timer on. If a decision can’t be made in 10 seconds it’s not clear and obvious. Let the goal stand. That will let the game flow better and give the attacker the advantage, which most football fans want to see.
With regard to offside and handballs. In some respects it’s not the referees fault. The rules keep changing to the point that fans and pundits don’t actually know what the rules are. Peter Walton on BT is pretty good at explaining the current rules when a VAR decision is being made and it’s crazy what the rules are. Overly complex and gives the referee licence to pick and choose on a decision. Again why would they do this unless they want the referees to have the ability to interpret rules (Real Sociedad penalty decision is a prime example). Go back to the root cause, simplify the rules.
I also think offsides need to have a timer on. If a decision can’t be made in 10 seconds it’s not clear and obvious. Let the goal stand. That will let the game flow better and give the attacker the advantage, which most football fans want to see.
Offsides don’t fall under clear and obvious and has more to do with the fiddling of equipment and making sure the lines are on the correct body parts then staring at a screen trying to make their mind up.
Nothing interrupts the flow of a game more than a goal and if the goal is incorrectly given
then it’s a disaster.
It’s a nothing point anyway, semi automated offsides will come in soon which will make the offside decision immediate
You say that but the current rules are that a player has to be active to be deemed offside. How is a computer going to know if a player is active in play or not? It comes down to interpretation again. That’s why I’m saying they need to go back to the root cause of the problem which is the over complicated rules. Take the Rashford goal against City. Very few United fans would say that should have been given as a goal but the current rules allowed it to stand.
For your first point, they could just look at the English justice system for inspiration. Base it on statutory law and in the abscence of that on earlier reasoning. If they did it similar to that and at least always strove to be consistent I think there would be a lot less outrage in the long run. Even if you don't always agree with the interpretation you would at least know what to expect from each similar situation.
They should also always have at least two people on VAR. I don't understand how they miss so many obvious situations.
Thank you, I thought I was losing it.
It confused me for a long time too, based off the pictures in that tweet that @awop posted. Also from not reading the article properly when you click through and just reading the captions under the pictures, The brief highlights I saw on the Sky Sports football Youtube channel didn't mention any potential offside.
It's when the ball is headed down to Norgaard by Pinnock where the offside is. Norgaard crosses to Toney who heads it in. From the one regular camera angle that I saw plus one replay you can't really tell that all as there were lots of bodies in the way. The right-hand picture in the tweet is what that depicts.
For the longest time I was thinking they were claiming offside for when the free kick was taken. There are two players in offside positions there. One is Pinnock, the other Mee. Pinnock does become involved in the move later on but the original ball that goes to Toney isn't really near him and an Arsenal player gets a head on it before Pinnock becomes involved. Either different phase of play or not affecting things I'd have said of Pinnock and Mee which was causing my confusion.
The article (when clicking on the Tweet) seems to think Arteta was claiming offside against one or both of Pinnock or Mee immediately after the match when reading through it too If so, he might've missed the Norgaard one as well at least at first. I believe the VAR looked into the Pinnock/Mee one, decided that they weren't involved/it was a different phase by the time Pinnock was and that was it. VAR didn't check the Norgaard one.
So it's this moment, Norgaard (far left) is offside:
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There is still a certain amount of subjectivity in the offside law such as was a player active because being in an offside position doesn’t mean that you are interfeing with play.
Personally I would abandon VAR because at least when you didn’t have it the PL could charge some of the challenges that are looked at by VAR and no action taken yet in the cold light of day it’s obvious a charge would be appropriate but more importantly it seems to me that even though we have VAR we still have as many debatable decisions as ever