If VAR was in use this season.....

Here’s a light-hearted look to see had the VAR system been in place this season what could have happened.

Liverpool (h) 3-3
Britos scores an offside goal.
VAR verdict: disallows the equaliser and the final score is 2-3
Referee: Anthony Taylor

Bournemouth (a) 2-0
Gray was cynically fouled by Cook in a build-up where Chalobah was put through 1 v 1, which prevented the chance for him to square the ball to Gray.
Arter was behind Chalobah and shouted to him to leave it, well within earshot of the referee. This prevented a clear shot on goal and the referee chose to ignore it.
VAR verdict: Unlikely to have been used in this match and didn’t affect the end result.
Referee: Roger East

Man City (h) 0-6
City's first and third goals were offside and should have been disallowed.
Walker pushed Richarlison in the back, a clear foul. This directy led to City's fourth goal.
Watford were denied a clear penalty after a foul by Otamendi on Chalobah.
VAR verdict: 3 goals disallowed for City. Watford awarded a penalty. Result would have been a narrow City win.
Referee: Anthony Taylor

Arsenal (h) 2-1
Ozil was offside when he was put clear through against Gomes with Watford trailing 1-0. Luckily Gomes saved the shot.
Contentious penalty awarded to Watford which changed the direction of the game.
VAR verdict. Had Ozil scored it would have been disallowed. Penalty award would have stood. Result would have still been a Watford win.
Referee: Neil Swarbrick

Chelsea (a) 2-4
Femenia was booked for kicking the ball away, but only by a few yards. Later on Hazard kicked the ball away and it actually went into the crowd and delayed the game, but no yellow card was awarded.
Ball went off for a goal kick but a corner is awarded to Chelsea and they score from this.
VAR verdict. Corner would have been overruled, so would have prevented the first goal. Result a possible win to Watford had they scored the following two goals as they did.
Referee: Jon Moss

Tottenham (h) 1-1
Red card to Sanchez of Spurs for foul on Richarlison
Blatant penalty not awarded to Watford in the last minute.
VAR verdict. Red card would have been upheld. An easy overrule and penalty awarded. With Deeney on the pitch at the time a goal would have been the probable outcome. Result a Watford win.
Referee: Martin Atkinson

Burnley (a) 0-1
Soft red card given to Zeegelaar.
Clear penalty not given for a foul on Richarlison
Burnley score 2 goals but they were ruled out for offside
Carrillo was fouled in the box, but again no penalty given
VAR verdict. Red card upheld. Penalty given to Watford, two offside goals awarded to Burnley, another penalty given to Watford. Result a higher scoring game, but still a narrow Burnley win.
Referee: Lee Probert


Huddersfield (h) 1-4
Soft red card given to Deeney.
VAR verdict. Red card upheld. Watford would have still lost heavily.
Referee: Michael Oliver

Swansea (h) 1-2
Wague goal disallowed for no reason
Swansea equaliser was offside and should not have stood
VAR verdict. Watford goal awarded. Swansea fist goal disallowed. Result a Watford win.
Referee: Martin Atkinson


Man City (a) 1-3
City's 3rd goal was offside
Watford were denied a clear penalty after a foul by Otamendi on Pererya
VAR verdict. City’s 3rd goal disallowed. Watford awarded a penalty. Result a draw.
Referee: Lee Mason

I may have forgotten a few decisions, but it's possible that poor decisions have cost us between 5 to 8 points this season already.

Without doubt, the worst referee for us this season has been Martin Atkinson. His controversial decisions/errors have directly cost us 5 points.

Anthony Taylor would have had 5 overturned reviews in his two games.

In total 18 reviews. Only 4 upheld and 14 overturned.

 

VAR wouldn't review Chalobah not taking a shot against Bournemouth.

Not sure we'd have won against Chelsea (or even drawn, to be honest).

Your assessment of our most recent game is laughable. If City's 3rd goal was disallowed, they'd carried on until they got one that wasn't disallowed. We were dog **** until they gave up in the 75th minute, and even then we hardly bothered attacking.

I'm strongly in the VAR camp, I think our referees need help, and the confidence to keep the game flowing rather than blowing for everything will actually result in a better game. Not entirely sure your views are correct though.

The things that I look forward to VAR sorting out are the likes of Naughton's stamp on Okaka. He should've had a few yellows before (after?) that anyway. Instead, we continue vs 11 men and Spurs, Wolves and Newcastle benefit from a weakened opponent.

 

The other thing that is being totally overlooked in HB1’s original post is that look at the leagues and games where VAR is already being used/trialled. It isn’t being used anywhere near as heavily as it’s being suggested would be needed in the above games.

VAR will only be used when prompted by the referee where he has doubts - such as when he/she believes a clear error has been made. This to me, means those incidents where a referee would normally consult with his linesman (ie. Bournemouth vs WHU), he can consult the VAR.

Mistakes will likely still happen because if a decision is close, the referee is still going to be more inclined to go with his linesman or his own view if it’s a foul etc. Referees aren’t stopping the game for every 50/50 or 60/40 decision in a game where it’s being trialled. They are normally not using VAR at all. It hasn’t been used twice in ANY game yet. It takes up to 3 minutes each time to use.

So looking at all the above incidents - were we on the wrong side of them? Yeah, sure. But none of them were contentious enough at the time in the eyes of the official so we would have no more or less points than we have now.

 

Strongly agree with VAR and most of the above. Agree with Burnsy in that it clearly would not have been used as much as HB1 indicates e.g. mistake for corner at Chelski. However, I would like to have a few adjustments: the fourth official (a qualified referee) should be monitoring the VAR throughout the game. So instead of concentrating on nonsense like Mr. Wenger straying outside the technical area they should be proactive and help the referee if they spot something like the stamp on Okaka. If the referee is making a key decision like a sending off, penalty appeal or potentially offside goal looking at the VAR should be mandatory. Finally team captains should be able to make one appeal per match, which they can choose to look at or not. I don't agree that it always takes 3 minutes to look at the VAR or that it slows the game down anymore than injuries. We do need to accept that VAR will not cover everything or will always be consulted. Citee would still have done the double over us but by a smaller margin. However we might have beaten Spurs at home or had a couple of penalties which COULD have made a difference. Remember all the fuss about the goal line technology and that has helped us against Lester.

 

I thought VAR is only being used to decide game changing incidents, offside goals, red cards and penalties and that was it?

 

It is. Plus cases of mistaken identity.. and it will only apply to straight reds.

From what i'm reading there are a lot of voices saying it is killing the atmosphere where it's been trialed. Players.. and subsequently the supporters know intrinsically when there are contentious issues and are pausing to hear the VAR decision before reacting.. which can take several minutes apparently. That cant be right.
Personally i'd limit it's use to offsides.. which should be clear cut decisions and quicker to judge. That could also be done by a fifth official without the need for pitchside screens. Simply double check every goal for possible offside infringements and notify the ref if mistakes have been made.

The rest i'd let go. Live with the decisions as we always have.

 

This is all very well, but aside from all the very valid points everyone else has raised, you’ve now got to run the same analysis for the the other 19 clubs in the league. It’s all very well saying we should have 5 extra points, but what about every other club? Do we know enough about their games to say they aren’t just as much or more hard done by than us?

 

Let's just give everyone 5 extra points and save the money on introducing the VAR

 

Posted at 11.39 on a Friday night.

Just imagine having that life...............

 

Trying to evaluate points lost due to bad decisions is erroneous. Change one small event in time and everything that follows from that point will be different. It's like saying a striker could have scored a hat-trick because he missed three great chances. If he'd scored the first then the entire pattern of the rest of the game would have been different and those chances wouldn't have happened.
You might as well postulate that Man City would have gone on to win 8-0 if one of those goals had been disallowed, it's just as valid a conclusion

 

I agree that VAR would probably not have changed the sending off of Zeegelaar or Deeney. One of my points is that the stamp on Okaka was not seen at the time by most in the stadium let alone the referee. The fourth (or fifth) official looking at VAR could have notified the ref immediately. Don't think there is much doubt that is a straight red and could have meant we got three points. As someone else said the stupid post-match panel banning the player retrospectively only helps our rivals. As they say in legal circles 'justice delayed is justice denied'. Unless we want to continue with the smug FA filling it's coffers with club fines or citing dubious reasons for extending player bans I would rather trust the scientific approach provided by VAR. I would just add that we cannot continue to blame the officials if they are not given help to get the big decisions right. It might also mean some of the dinosaur pundits are given the push as they will have less to argue about.

 

The retrospective punishment is a step in the right direction, it doesn’t help the team at the time but it’s obviously impossible to know how many incidents it has helped to prevent because players know they can’t get away with it. I’d agree though that if it’s used for nothing else, VAR would be a very useful tool to have for spotting off the ball incidents and making sure the team that suffered the injustice gets the benefit.

 

I don’t really want VAR brought in at all. But it seems like it’s coming so I hope it’s used as little as possible and only for instances where a clear mistake has been made. I’m thinking any instance where a referee currently consults his fellow officials and things like ‘John Eustace against Reading’. Not offsides that are so marginal that its hard to tell even on TV replay - even if they are against us. The game was never designed to be perfect and the referee’s word should still be final and he/she should have a margin for error still. Otherwise, may as well just take them away all together. There isn’t a lot wrong with the game that couldn’t be sorted by just making certain points less complicated.

Sadly, having the 4th or even a 5th official watching the whole game on a screen just means that the game will get stopped more and more in the future because those officials will increasingly alert the referee to more incidents season-on-season - it’s in the current evolution of the game.

All of these things are seemingly being done in my eyes to eradicate the game from being a contact sport and to stop players diving. Well so far, given the bad challenges and players still going to ground without a touch, means that it isn’t stopping them. Look at Hazard against Arsenal the other day - does he get the merest of touches? Yes. So by the letter of the law, it’s a penalty. But it will be debated and debated due to the ambiguity of the laws of the game. But you simply cannot tell me that isn’t a dive. He isn’t kicked hard and he isn’t kicked in a way that is befitting of the way he hits the ground. He’s looking for the penalty. To me, that’s cheating. We saw Doucoure against Brighton earlier in the season punished in the box with an indirect free-kick. For me, there should be far more of them...

All this before I’ve even got round to the terrible idea of giving captains/managers ‘appeals’ during a game...

 

Forget about VAR, let's go the whole hog and have robot assistant refs, RAR, to analyse the game in real-time.

Any player or manager who disagrees with a decision and makes a fuss could be exterminated.

Although Holebas would only last about 5 minutes

 

Holebas could take a robot.

 

I actually agree with this point.

However, games against Spurs and Swansea have directly cost us 5 points, thanks to Mr Atkinson.

Seeing as his mistakes were at crucial times late in the game, I think it’s fair to say it did have a direct influence on the result in both those games.

The rest is open to conjecture, and as I said, it was a lighthearted take on things.

What it does highlight though is how many bad decisions there have been, especially with offside goals and I had forgotten to include the offside goal Huddersfield scored against us.

 

Didn't this forum mock some arsenal fan who reviewed every ref decision affecting arsenal in a very similar method to the one above?

 

Certain “members” on this forum mock absolutely everything, so I wouldn’t take much notice of that.

 

I'm for it if used for penalty appeals and red cards. Might at least make refs give a little more thought on decisions rather than wading straight in.

 

But even in the Spurs game, Zeegelaar committed an obvious second yellow offence and wasn't sent off. So it should've finished 10 v 10. So maybe Atkinson saved us points then?

Also, you haven't mentioned the biggest single decision that cost us - the ref not sending Van Aanholt off. I have no doubt that we'd have seen that game out if they'd gone down to ten at that stage, not least because Cleverley wouldn't have had that airshot and got himself sent off. The feeling that they'd got away with one and then us going down to ten men about 30 seconds later completely changed that game.

 

It is I think and have to say I completely agree with it. Theres far too many wrong/bad decisions by the officials nearly every weekend up and down the country (for example Liverpools penalty in the cup yesterday) its ruining the game. If it doesnt work then so be it, it can always be dropped again, but atleast its been tried.

 

I don't think VAR would have changed that decision though.

 

You are right that the future is contingent upon the present, but surely the 8-0 scoreline, whilst possible, would be less probable than the other one proposed. All possible scorelines are not all equally probable.

 

The majority of the posts in this thread are too long to read.

I have not read them.

 

Thanks for posting

 

You're welcome. I appreciate your feedback.

 

Meh - you needn't read this; none of this stuff is compulsory, you know.
I cannot see why there are people against VAR. No, it will not solve every question but it will improve the percentage of correct decisions. The only reason I can see you could object to that is if you want to artificially induce contention because it is good show-business.
The game is full of stop-starts already.. If you want to speed it up even more (although, God knows, referees already can't keep up), why not insist, within the rules, that opposition players must start moving away from a free-kick position immediately (in the manner of rugby union). Appropriate punishments might be to move the free-kick forwards 10 metres (why did they stop doing that?) or 10 minute sin-bins. Imagine if the referee didn't have to insist he stops play while he 'arranges' the defensive wall - there'd be more goals scored.
Sin-bins are a great idea (and not even difficult to run) as they reduce the all-or-nothing nature of some punishments such as red cards. They increase the justice of the system because the referee is not forced to make so many 'huge' decisions and because they bring immediate benefit to the victims. They would force players to re-evaluate the costs/benefits of many 'professional' fouls. Chelsea were at it this afternoon: If a Norwich player looked like he might get away on a run, he was brought down. Not quite a yellow card, but enough to give Chelsea benefit for cheating.
Offsides will remain contentious regardless of VAR because the rules need to be changed from the current entirely subjective judgement of the officials. Nobody can interpret them.

 

Sorry, my comment was to hb1. An absolute load of drivel.

 

I did not read all of this.

 

Also, with sin-bins, the nature of the clock continuing to run in football would just result in the penalised team wasting time in the middle of a game until their player came back on.

 

Absolutely - the culture in football towards referees is atrocious, to be honest. BTW - I like the idea of 'sin buns' instead of sin bins - but they're probably not for this forum.

It cold be an optional offer to the team: They could take it up if they wanted; it must depend upon the position on the pitch. And, of course, if it moved into the penalty area that would certainly concentrate a few minds.

 

Not sure about VAR. I´ve just been thinking of a few examples in the past that may have changed if VAR was around.

The Deeney goal against Leicester would never have been scored as the ref would see that Lockhardt had dived.
The England goal in the world cup final.1966
That cheating ******* Ian Rush dived with 5 mins to go in the league cup semi final, we could have been in the final.

for now I thing VAR should only be used to see if the ball went over the line or on a handball decisión.