VAR decisions

What does the ‘Premier League Match Centre’ have to do with refereeing a game? Who are they? They say refs make mistakes but why should they be listened to?

VAR is making so many errors.
- just does not contradict the on pitch ref no matter how obvious the mistake, and does not seem to alert on field refs to incidents missed by them.

 

I think it would be better if they allowed fans to hear the conversations between the VAR and the on field ref. Or at least have the VAR talk through his decision live like the third umpire does in cricket. I can't for the life of me see how the Man Utd penalty was upheld last night but at least if we had the benefit of the VAR's thought process we might understand.

 

For once I'm with Mourinho on this, I do not blame him one bit

 

Never going to happen unfortunately.

 

The biggest push for it will come from Sky/BT etc. And they have a strong hand at the moment with their contracts turned inside out and the PL having to potentially refund them hundreds of millions unless it can come up with ways to sweeten the existing deal. One way to do that is offer them more access or content and miking up the VAR would tick that box. I'm sure there'll be push back from the refs though.

 

Man Utd and Man City have been given cheap penalties all season. Jon Moss just loves United, and will give them a cheap penalty at a drop of the hat. This is the problem. You have officials who are not honest. They favour the clubs they like or go against the clubs they don't particularly like.

Very few officials are totally honest, and this problem is rife in England. I've seen Dawson get pulled down by his arm against Southampton, a clear penalty and nobody would have objected if that had been given, but of course it's ignored. This is regular.

The bigger clubs get these decisions, as referees play the reputation, not the situation.

Now when it comes to VAR, they do not want to undermine the on field official. They can't overrule it because it's one opinion against another. This is why VAR just does nothing most of the time, even when it's obvious. Like the Sheff Utd goal at Villa. That extra point Villa took, might be the one that keeps them up and sends us down. It was clear the ball had crossed the line, but VAR did nothing to help the referee.

VAR is a great system, there is nothing wrong with it, but as I expected, it has just shown up how utterly inept/dishonest/biased referees are in England.

 

Completely agree but the refs will do everything they can to stop that happening as it will expose how dreadful some of their decision making is

 

The main problem is VAR isn’t being used to correct decisions. It’s overwhelmingly being used to strengthen the on-field decision so as not to undermine the official on the field of play. Michael Oliver backing up his mate on the pitch as he knows it could be him a week later. One big boys club.

 

One way to stop that is to have an independent body of officials monitoring the screens. English referees cannot be trusted to do this. They've been given their chance and have shown how incompetent they are. The only way forward, is to get referees from anywhere in Europe to oversee these matches. The VAR centre doesn't have to be in Stockley Park, it could be anywhere in the world.

It's the only way you can have truly neutral and independent officiating.

 

What a disgrace they are. Even with technology they can't get things correct. Utterly incompetent.

 

Anyone who has played the game knows the two decisions last night were wrong. I've always said in local football that referees make terrible linesmen. In top flight football terrible referees make even worse VAR officials. I thought when VAR was introduced it would benefit Watford and the smaller clubs. How wrong I was. The Premier league is rotten to the core!

 

I'm pleased that others are finally seeing what I've noticed for years. Only now we have VAR which has polarised these decisions. There is no escaping from it now. They cannot use the excuse of just seeing things once in real time.

 

I've said it for a while now - VAR only highlights how bad the referees are, it doesn't solve that problem.

I don't believe they are bent as such but there is a certain tendency towards the top 6, there is a genuine fear of upsetting them.

 

But we knew this at the outset given how the Premier League decided to implement VAR. They chose to neuter it because they were more bothered about the product and their image - they wanted it to be there to catch the complete howlers but were obsessed with letting the on-field ref lie in the hole he'd already dug. They felt it would annoy crowds and disrupt the flow of the game if everything kept being referred. I'm talking clubs and the PL board here too, not just the referees. Hence we ended up with the monitors sitting idle for months and even after that barely used, combined with the ridiculous line drawing for offsides because they're supposed to be binary decisions.

 

So how come Kane didn't get a penalty against little old Bournemouth? Or are you suggesting Spurs are not a big club?

 

Just a reminder that nothing is 'referred' to VAR.
I'm wholly against VAR but, if you're having a video review system you have to let it review and overturn the big decisions if they are wrong, such as the ones last night. They have to get over the idea of supporting the on-field ref and only changing certain clear errors, because who decides what is clear enough? Yes the ref's authority will be undermined but it's undermined anyway just by having VAR. The situation now is doubly ludicrous because, when it comes to one type of offence - offside - they are quite happy to overturn a decision for the minutest margin but not for others like an obvious push in the back.

 

https://alloutfootball.co.uk/watford-vs-var/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

This guy has done Gino’s homework for him. Lawsuit to anyone and everyone incoming from Gino.

 

Udinese beat Juve!

 

Serious question: -

Are we unique with the amount of bad calls we have received this season, or do a lot of other teams have a similar amount of bad shouts?

 

We probably get more than most, I would suggest. The fact that our players are so passive doesn't help!
One think I've noticed without crowds is how vocal some teams are over refereeing decisions.
It has totally confirmed that At Eddie and his acolytes are constantly in the officials ears.

 

Had forgotten about Mings laughing and saying he should’ve been sent off

 

Sorry, I haven't read through the thread but I was wondering if anyone thinks, pending things stay the way they are, the Pozzo's would take action against the Goal Decision System for the botch in Villa v Sheffield U?

 

Could do. Depends on what alibi the Goal Decision System has.

Did it take its eye off the ball because it was fluttering its AI eyelids at VAR? I've heard rumours that there might be something in that. There's always sordid affairs at the top of major sport and I would not be surprised if this is the case.

I suspect that the Goal Decision System just forgot to look, was distracted, maybe at that bar from Tron Legacy rather than anything particularly controversial.

 

Ha ha....No.

 

Agree with all of this. I think we've got a right to feel aggrieved.

 

I don't see why the people assigned as the VAR have to be referees. They just have to know the laws of the game. People have different skills, so it's not unreasonable that a referee on the pitch could be better at managing the players reactions to decisions and disciplining them while the VAR could be better at quick analysis of an incident, command of the technology and communicating the overruling of a decision.

 

If we go down on GD and Villa survive we should sue the company running goal line technology. As for VAR I agree about non referees running it. God our referees are awful and I suspect not impartial to a certain degree (some of them). We should do a deal with the other major leagues and have their referees doing our games and English referees doing Spanish and Italian league matches. This system seems to work in the European competitions.

 

Overall I think VAR is a bit of a mixed back.

Positives:

Ball crossing the line: Will usually always be correct.
Offside: That's usually right as well, with the technology of the lines on the pitch.
Elbows / Violent Conduct: Easier to spot most of the time.

Negatives:

Handball in the box: The person in the VAR booth will have their own interpretation of how far up the arm handball is. There needs to be a clear understood direction.
Fouls in the box: Too inconsistent with the 'Clear and Obvious' interpretation.

 

The thing I didn't get with the Sakho decision is arguably it needed more explanation for disallowing it than it did to just give it. I was sat with a Villa fan watching the game and even he didn't seriously think it was handball.