VAR

[bexleyboy]

Another shocking weekend concerning VAR and the standard of the refs up and down the country … Darren England was the man in charge of VAR at Spurs now been replaced for the game today .

Point is we have had Darren England at Charlton he is a league one ref and was bloody awful yet he is charge of VAR .. now he will dropped again most likely end up at the valley on Tuesday or Saturday

[Mundell]

I’m in favour of VAR, but I agree that yesterday’s error was unacceptable, very hard to understand and completely unforgivable. 

The explanation, bizarrely, appears to be that the VAR thought the goal had been given so that having confirmed Diaz was onside he went with the onfield decision. Unfortunately, the VAR had missed the fact the linesman had flagged for offside and, presumably, failed to notice that Liverpool’s players had stopped celebrating because the goal had been disallowed. 

It really beggars belief. It will be interesting to see if Howard Webb releases the tape of the conversation between VAR and the referee. 

Sadly, having listened to Mike Dean’s extraordinary confession to Simon Jordan, and his pathetic attempts subsequently to explain himself, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that PGMOL are a bunch of brainless, muddled muppets who need to recruit some outside blood (not ex footballers or referees) to help them establish some order. 

PS For the record, I thought the red card for Curtis Jones was the right call. 

[wellingaddick]

The problem with VAR, is that you can have all the camera angles, still photo's and offside lines, but ultimately most decisions still come down to a human interpretation. whether it be the on field officials or those in the monitoring studio.

I would have said that the solution might be to have more than one VAR official, have a kind of committee in order to minimize some of these mistakes and to get some form of consensus over what is the correct decision to make, but given that yesterday's VAR assistant, fouled up as much as Darren England did, I don't know what to suggest as an answer.

[petetongthereturn]

Glad it’s not in the Football League.

See my post earlier his week about fast tracking.

[bigandy99]

The big issue, in my opinion, is the time it takes to reach some decisions.. fans want the continued drama of a game.. not waiting around for 3 minutes

[zenga]

VAR has 3 big advantages for me:
1) Linesmen flag way less for offside when they are not sure, since the VAR can correct this.
2) Ballpark number: 80-90% of unfair decisions are corrected by the VAR. The remaining 10-20% is just the nature of football.
3) Likelihood that a ref is corrupt is reduced drastically with the VAR.

One of the biggest issues however lies in the fact that most fans, players, pundits and journalists have never read the rulebook. Yes of course we all know the basics. But when was the last time you actually read the rulebook, if ever? Or even just keeping up with the changes? There are many urban myths when it comes down to the rules.

I hope they will adapt and improve the VAR where necessary/possible. Be that each team has X amount of challenges per game or something else; VAR is imo a godsend.

[aaronaldo]

Oct 2, 2023 8:45:05 GMT zenga said:

VAR has 3 big advantages for me:
1) Linesmen flag way less for offside when they are not sure, since the VAR can correct this.
2) Ballpark number: 80-90% of unfair decisions are corrected by the VAR. The remaining 10-20% is just the nature of football.
3) Likelihood that a ref is corrupt is reduced drastically with the VAR.

One of the biggest issues however lies in the fact that most fans, players, pundits and journalists have never read the rulebook. Yes of course we all know the basics. But when was the last time you actually read the rulebook, if ever? Or even just keeping up with the changes? There are many urban myths when it comes down to the rules.

I hope they will adapt and improve the VAR where necessary/possible. Be that each team has X amount of challenges per game or something else; VAR is imo a godsend.

Agree about the lack of knowledge on rules. But surely there is a responsibility on the Premier League (and other leagues) to educate the fans on VAR decisions and how they were right as per the rulebook.

The problem at the weekend with the Liverpool Spurs game was a joke. The process doesn't even say what the "VAR check" was doing and if they got it wrong then there was no way (in the rulebook!!) to correct it. That is so shockingly poor. There's always going to be mistakes in communication. Not planning for these is school boy error levels.

VAR could see the ref had misinterpetted their 'check' and they couldn't do anything about it as they weren't allowed to by the rules. I feel like they should've ignored the rules and contacted the ref to explain the mistake personally.

There needs to be more communcation to the fans to explain decisions as well. The simple "No goal" "Goal" "VAR check completed" etc isn't enough. If it's not a goal then the ref should explain why. Was it offside in the build up? A foul? Handball? Etc. Sometimes it's difficult to work out which incident they're even reviewing.

Refs also need to remember that football isn't played in slow-mo and everything looks worse in slow-mo.

[kings hill addick]

I see that Liverpool issued a statement saying that they will explore the options available to them.

If Spurs finish one point above Liverpool and the latter fails to qualify for the Champions League there could be a very messy and expensive, court case.

To be fair the VAR officials have one job. I can't help but wonder if this English chap was even watching the game. If that happened to us I would want more than a chap to lose his job. I would want the match made null and void and replayed.

[manikin]

If var is used and there are result changing errors the match should be replayed.

[aaronaldo]

Oct 2, 2023 11:57:34 GMT manikin said:

If var is used and there are result changing errors the match should be replayed.

We'd have had to replay 30% of the Premiership since VAR was introduced.

Talk about a can of worms. That would be an horrific decision if we ever got there. At that point, VAR would have to go. Go back to how it was and see how much everyone complains.

You don't know what you've got until it's gone...

[manikin]

Oct 2, 2023 13:56:34 GMT aaronaldo said:

Oct 2, 2023 11:57:34 GMT manikin said:

If var is used and there are result changing errors the match should be replayed.

We'd have had to replay 30% of the Premiership since VAR was introduced.

Talk about a can of worms. That would be an horrific decision if we ever got there. At that point, VAR would have to go. Go back to how it was and see how much everyone complains.

You don't know what you've got until it's gone...

I don't think so, if that was the penalty they'd make sure they go the decision right in the first place. What is the point of VAR if those who operate it are incompetent, operators should be completely trained in it's use, not bumped up incompetent referees. I know it's slightly different but it works a damn sight better in tennis, cricket and rugby.

[Mundell]

Oct 2, 2023 11:54:33 GMT kings hill addick said:

I see that Liverpool issued a statement saying that they will explore the options available to them.

If Spurs finish one point above Liverpool and the latter fails to qualify for the Champions League there could be a very messy and expensive, court case.

To be fair the VAR officials have one job. I can't help but wonder if this English chap was even watching the game. If that happened to us I would want more than a chap to lose his job. I would want the match made null and void and replayed.

I thought Liverpool’s statement was unnecessarily provocative and a bit juvenile. We need a grown up debate not toys out of prams. There is no possibility of the game being replayed and if Liverpool seriously believe there is it’s an indication of extraordinarily narrow and egocentric thinking.

VAR needs to be staffed by specialists not by reluctant referees who are having a weekend off.

[earlpurple]

I would love to see VAR in the lower leagues, especially where the refereeing is often poorer. I'm still bitter about Chuks Aneke's disallowed goal against Reading which essentially led to us getting relegated, and we may have got the penalty later in that game too.

It's supposed to be clear and obvious errors, where they can see within 30 seconds if the on-field decision was incorrect. In the case of Spurs vs Liverpool they could probably have seen within 30 seconds that it was not offside, and I find it strange that they didn't get that right, but remember the on-field decision was offside, so if they didn't have VAR they'd have got the decision wrong.

[kings hill addick]

Oct 3, 2023 9:38:23 GMT earlpurple said:

I would love to see VAR in the lower leagues, especially where the refereeing is often poorer. I'm still bitter about Chuks Aneke's disallowed goal against Reading which essentially led to us getting relegated, and we may have got the penalty later in that game too.

It's supposed to be clear and obvious errors, where they can see within 30 seconds if the on-field decision was incorrect. In the case of Spurs vs Liverpool they could probably have seen within 30 seconds that it was not offside, and I find it strange that they didn't get that right, but remember the on-field decision was offside, so if they didn't have VAR they'd have got the decision wrong.

They did get that right. What they are saying is that this chap, Darren England, believed that the goal had been given so he did the mandatory check and didn't overturn the decision because he didn't realise that the linesman had flagged for offside. That is what makes this situation so unique.

I have no idea what England was doing to not have realised that the linesman had flagged for offside. The rules (protocols) state that as soon as the game kicks off they can't go back There is an argument that at this point the VAR chaps should have called the Referee and said that there was a mistake, but they followed the protocols and they did not.

I am ok with human error and mistakes if the game is going to be played as it always was but as soon as technology is going to be relied upon the bar has to be raised. This mistake is unforgivable. I have no idea how the chap could not have realised hat the linesman had flagged for offside. He must've not been watching the game. The issue is that this is not a case of the VAR bods having more time to look at it and decide, with more views, that they made the wrong decision. It, also, raises the question if these chaps ever watch the games or just sit around chatting until called upon to make a decision.

We'll never know what the result would have been if the goal has stood but the same is true of the 'goal' that wasn't given in the Bolton, Everton game in September 1997 that finished 0-0. That was used as an example of how it can effect a season when Bolton were relegated by goal difference from Everton who stayed up. This game was trotted out, often, when discussions of VAR were had.

I think that VAR has increased the accuracy of outcomes over the season, so there is an argument for it being used. However, I was quite happy with the way it was before. In fact, one of the great things about football was that, sometimes, a decision goes the wrong way and it contributes to an upset which is what makes football so exciting. The more sterile the game becomes the more predictable the outcomes will be. There is a lot of statistical evidence that suggests that fans want less predicable results. We, also, don't want the big clubs to win everything. The more that random events are removed from the game, the more that will happen.

Anyway VAR is here to stay but I suspect that Darren England is not.