VAR Thoughts?

[Pete]

5 minutes ago, Barrington Womble said:

That tonight shows exactly why VAR should be fucked right off. That decision tonigt was a fucking disgrace. 

I blame the bloke actually on VAR and the ref for that tonight though clearly there are issues with the standard of referees in this country that needs addressing. 

[Strontium]

It's like saying we should get rid of cars because some pisshead got behind the wheel drunk and killed someone.

 

All tools are only as good, or as corrupt, as the people operating them.

[dockers_strike]

Much as I hated the goal being ruled out, it's not VAR at fault but the shit decision making then arse covering to back up the decision. I thought the goal was in doubt even though I saw the cavani running into the Villa attacker, because it looked to me the ball came off Ings head then hit his hand \ arm before crossing the line. That means the goal wouldnt stand under the rules.

 

Looking at replays it then looked like it might have come off his thigh instead. Goal stands. Only then the commentators are blathering about Ings may be offside when the last Villa attacker touched the ball. That looked very tight.

 

Then it's the 'block' on Cavani who runs into the attacker and some obscure part of the rule that it's a foul if the Villa player is offside and blocks a defender but only if the defender could get to the ball?!

 

Funny how when Jota was blocked off in the Spurs box by a defender, Tierney waved play on and VAR said no foul. But tonight there was?

[Jennings]

Don't blame VAR. Blame the fucking inept chimps trying to make it do something.

[Mook]

28 minutes ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

It's like saying we should get rid of cars because some pisshead got behind the wheel drunk and killed someone.

 

All tools are only as good, or as corrupt, as the people operating them.

VAR is an old, knackered three wheeler though. You could put Stirling Moss in the driver's seat and it would still be a fucking farce.

[Barrington Womble]

51 minutes ago, Joey8FrogsLegs said:

No. The beatiful mix of incompetence, inconsistency, bias and corruption is the problem. Not VAR.

But this is my point. No matter which part of the blend it is, why give incompetent, inconsistent, bias and corrupt officials 2 chances to fuck things over. A ref wouldn't have ruled that goal out tonight, because he wouldn't have seen anything to rule out. VAR just kept running the tapes till it found something. Offside, "no". Handball, "no". Shit 3 minutes have gone, there must be something. "Well, there's a 1% chance cavani was trying to get to that ball". No goal. 

[Bob]

1 minute ago, Pete said:

I blame the bloke actually on VAR and the ref for that tonight though clearly there are issues with the standard of referees in this country that needs addressing. 

This point gets mistakenly made time and time again. VAR is inclusive of the bloke implementing the use of the technology. It’s a Video Assisted Referee. It’s not the videos, or the cameras, it’s the ref, with those things to assist.

[No2]

I didn't see the in incident at the time but seen the replay and have no issue with that goal been ruled out. Don't stand in a stupid offside position if you don't intend interfering with the play. We see it all the time with lads blocking keepers. 

[Joey8FrogsLegs]

13 minutes ago, Barrington Womble said:

But this is my point. No matter which part of the blend it is, why give incompetent, inconsistent, bias and corrupt officials 2 chances to fuck things over. A ref wouldn't have ruled that goal out tonight, because he wouldn't have seen anything to rule out. VAR just kept running the tapes till it found something. Offside, "no". Handball, "no". Shit 3 minutes have gone, there must be something. "Well, there's a 1% chance cavani was trying to get to that ball". No goal. 

Agree upon all of that. But the same ref, without VAR, would’ve gotten a number of other things wrong. And the outcome would be the same, at least in the longer run it would.

 

Competent officials equipped with VAR would be the solution. Not likely to happen soon of course.

[Barrington Womble]

7 minutes ago, Joey8FrogsLegs said:

Agree upon all of that. But the same ref, without VAR, would’ve gotten a number of other things wrong. And the outcome would be the same, at least in the longer run it would.

 

Competent officials equipped with VAR would be the solution. Not likely to happen soon of course.

We don't have any. Our most competent official was on the pitch tonight and he's fucking shit. But that tonight has fuck all to do with competence. The VAR just did what they did so many times last season. As soon as the ball hit the back of the net, they had to find a reason for it not to count. Or at least they spent so long looking at something that wasn't there, they had to find something to justify the hold up. We see it all too often. They just see what they want. 

 

 

[Mook]

12 minutes ago, Joey8FrogsLegs said:

Agree upon all of that. But the same ref, without VAR, would’ve gotten a number of other things wrong. And the outcome would be the same, at least in the longer run it would.

 

Competent officials equipped with VAR would be the solution. Not likely to happen soon of course.

The solution was here until three years ago.

 

We could celebrate goals properly then. Yes, referees made the odd mistake but you had a moan about it over a pint and moved on without this fucking circus around every big decision.

[General Dryness]

VAR is just another tool to be used to unfairly influence the outcome of matches.

 

We already know that the position of the powers that be is that United underperforming is bad for the English game.

 

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/26782112

[Barrington Womble]

12 minutes ago, No2 said:

I didn't see the in incident at the time but seen the replay and have no issue with that goal been ruled out. Don't stand in a stupid offside position if you don't intend interfering with the play. We see it all the time with lads blocking keepers. 

That block is only a foul if cavani is attempting to go directly to the ball, he was never getting to the ball. If he's just trying to get back into a better defensive position, then that's not a foul. This came after VAR looking at an offside that wasn't because the ball wasn't touched and a handball that wasn't because it hit his thigh. They reran the tapes so much, they just wanted to find a reason to have stopped the game. 

[George Costanza]

Its a load of shit and it simply isn't improving as time has gone on.  Its just mates backing up mates and even when an error has occurred its still 50:50 whether that error will be rectified as they hide behind the 'clear & obvious' bullshit.  Time to stop re-reffing games because its the blind leading the incompetent blind. 

 

I'd like to see it either completely binned off or at worst reduced to a challenge system.  If the manager/coach of a team thinks a clear mistake has been made he makes a challenge which is then reviewed. The ref is forced to view the incident on a monitor to review his decision.  He also then has to explain his decision in the review process so everyone has clarity whether he's just inept or on the take. 3 challenges per match for each team whether successful or not. Offsides need much more margin for error as well. This increasing the width of the lines is still a nonsense. marginal for or against is not an obvious mistake.  The attacker needs to be clearly ahead or behind the last defender to overrule whatever the onfield decision was. If its tight one way or the other then tough shit stick with the onfield decision.

[an tha]

3 mins and 36 seconds it took for var/ref to disallow that villa equaliser.

 

Cheating bastards

 

If you need over  3 and a half mins to decide to disallow a goal its clearly a fucking goal, but of course its 'better' for fa to have the mancs through....

 

They are killing the game.

[Baltar]

It's scandalous, football is a crooked sport and VAR has made things much easier for bent officials to change the outcome of games.

[TheHowieLama]

1 hour ago, Jennings said:

Don't blame VAR. Blame the fucking inept chimps trying to make it do something  it on the boogie.

 

[Supremolad]

1 hour ago, George Costanza said:

Its a load of shit and it simply isn't improving as time has gone on.  Its just mates backing up mates and even when an error has occurred its still 50:50 whether that error will be rectified as they hide behind the 'clear & obvious' bullshit.  Time to stop re-reffing games because its the blind leading the incompetent blind. 

 

I'd like to see it either completely binned off or at worst reduced to a challenge system.  If the manager/coach of a team thinks a clear mistake has been made he makes a challenge which is then reviewed. The ref is forced to view the incident on a monitor to review his decision.  He also then has to explain his decision in the review process so everyone has clarity whether he's just inept or on the take. 3 challenges per match for each team whether successful or not. Offsides need much more margin for error as well. This increasing the width of the lines is still a nonsense. marginal for or against is not an obvious mistake.  The attacker needs to be clearly ahead or behind the last defender to overrule whatever the onfield decision was. If its tight one way or the other then tough shit stick with the onfield decision.

When VAR system started being used in the PL, it was clear that it was going to end up too meddlesome. A good number of people have suggested the challenge system, similar to tennis. But others think doing it wont be better than what we have now. I've always been in favour of a challenge system. 1 per half.

 

I seriously see no downside to reducing the need for VAR officials to stick their noses into every contentious decision. Using the challenge system robs them of their power drunkenness and reduces the number of times they get to be involved. Give a good chunk of power to the teams competing. And if any team waste their challenges stupidly, they only have themselves to blame. 

[VladimirIlyich]

6 hours ago, George Costanza said:

Its a load of shit and it simply isn't improving as time has gone on.  Its just mates backing up mates and even when an error has occurred its still 50:50 whether that error will be rectified as they hide behind the 'clear & obvious' bullshit.  Time to stop re-reffing games because its the blind leading the incompetent blind. 

 

I'd like to see it either completely binned off or at worst reduced to a challenge system.  If the manager/coach of a team thinks a clear mistake has been made he makes a challenge which is then reviewed. The ref is forced to view the incident on a monitor to review his decision.  He also then has to explain his decision in the review process so everyone has clarity whether he's just inept or on the take. 3 challenges per match for each team whether successful or not. Offsides need much more margin for error as well. This increasing the width of the lines is still a nonsense. marginal for or against is not an obvious mistake.  The attacker needs to be clearly ahead or behind the last defender to overrule whatever the onfield decision was. If its tight one way or the other then tough shit stick with the onfield decision.

This is why it shouldn't exist in football. Trying to find ways around the fact that it is ruining a once dynamic,fluid sport is why it has no place in the game at all.

[Bob]

11 hours ago, Mook said:

The solution was here until three years ago.

 

We could celebrate goals properly then. Yes, referees made the odd mistake but you had a moan about it over a pint and moved on without this fucking circus around every big decision.

Yep, well at least the grown ups did. The knobheads on Twitter that make loads of noise about small things didn’t, they had a meltdown.

[Barrington Womble]

10 hours ago, Supremolad said:

When VAR system started being used in the PL, it was clear that it was going to end up too meddlesome. A good number of people have suggested the challenge system, similar to tennis. But others think doing it wont be better than what we have now. I've always been in favour of a challenge system. 1 per half.

 

I seriously see no downside to reducing the need for VAR officials to stick their noses into every contentious decision. Using the challenge system robs them of their power drunkenness and reduces the number of times they get to be involved. Give a good chunk of power to the teams competing. And if any team waste their challenges stupidly, they only have themselves to blame. 

The challenge system also get them off the hook when they miss something - if it was so obvious, it would be challenged. 

 

Also, I wouldn't give them as many as 1 per half. I would even be reluctant to give 1 per match. We were told when this all started, the aim was to rid the game of the really bad errors. The henry handball v Ireland. The lampard over the line goal (although clearly that has been fixed in a better way) v germany. But these aren't once per match type incidents. They're half a dozen times across a league season. I would give teams maybe half a dozen for the whole season. If they're right, they keep it. If they're wrong, they lose it. They have 30 seconds from the incident to claim the appeal and the referee (or 4th official) gets 1 look from a set number of angles of his choice pitch side. Fuck the VAR ref off, just hire someone who knows how to point a mouse so the ref can see it clearly pitch side. I would mic everyone up - the person who makes the appeal for the team and the officials, so everyone is clear what is happening. The appeal can't be "something happened there" and they keep looking till they find it. It has to be absolute "we are appealing this". So last night as an example, Salford might have chosen to go for the hand ball. They might have chosen to go for the touch off Wilkins to make the offside. They absolutely would never have asked for that goal to be ruled out because Cavani was blocked off. And if they went into that goal and said we want you to look at Cavani, the offside, the handball. Well that's 3 of your 6 per season appeals gone. You only keep the ones which would have overturned your decision. 

 

And for offside, I would say that goes with the onfield decision till it's reviewed too. The only thing I would keep exactly as it is now is the goal line. We are pretty sure that works, it's quick and everyone is happy with it. Interestingly, it is the only one where the judgement of our referees is not required. 

 

There you go. Simple. 

 

Barrington Riley. 

[Bobby Hundreds]

Its being used to shape results. Riley and his whole fucking cabal need to be a separate entity from Var, they should ref and an independent body tells them what's what because its looking more and more like corruption than incompetence these days.

[dockers_strike]

12 hours ago, Supremolad said:

When VAR system started being used in the PL, it was clear that it was going to end up too meddlesome. A good number of people have suggested the challenge system, similar to tennis. But others think doing it wont be better than what we have now. I've always been in favour of a challenge system. 1 per half.

 

I seriously see no downside to reducing the need for VAR officials to stick their noses into every contentious decision. Using the challenge system robs them of their power drunkenness and reduces the number of times they get to be involved. Give a good chunk of power to the teams competing. And if any team waste their challenges stupidly, they only have themselves to blame. 

It is majorly disappointing VAR is being used in England the way it is. Obviously I dont have access to all VAR issues where it's used in Spain, Italy, Germany, France etc. It would be interesting to know the number of contentious decisions VAR in those countries versus England.

 

But, I always contend the biggest fault with VAR is down to Mike Riley. He never wanted it and used his authority to undermine its use. The mindset with VAR officials seems to be find any reasons to disallow goals. It is used at an almost forensic level: if action A cant be used to disallow the goal, can action B or C etc?

 

It should just be was the goal legitimately scored not what happened 3 or 4 'phases' of the game ago. Yes, VAR makes it possible to do that but again, that wasnt the original proposal for it.

 

The other issue we have is the appalling standard of referees in England. OK, Im baised but to me, cavani just runs into the Villa player. And even if the Villa player did block him, he's getting nowhere near that ball to defend it and the excuses made by the officials appear just that, excuses.

[gkmacca]

I've said it before, but they should limit VAR to one replay and one minute. There's absolutely no justification for using coloured lines and searching through every possible angle, at every shade of slo-mo, before reaching a decision about what is 'clear and obvious'.

 

Someone blatantly offside who isn't ruled offside because the ref and/or linesman's view was obstructed - that's when VAR is needed. A Fellaini-style elbow in the face off the ball when the officials aren't watching - that's when VAR is needed.

 

If it's marginal then it's a marginal - no VAR. Debate it among the pundits.

 

What VAR, when misused, doesn't seem to understand is that top-level sport is now so fast and competitive that there HAS to be a degree of ambiguity in key moments such as offside, because it's about fine margins, and you simply cannot and should not try to do away with the ambiguity that creates. VAR isn't supposed to be trying to count angels on the head of a pin. It's supposed to intervene when most people watching are already shouting, 'That's a mistake!'

 

It's not there to find hidden errors. It's there to put right obvious ones.

 

I'm not sure how boneheaded the VAR operatives are not to grasp this fact, but it was there in their very own MO.

[Trumo]

Completely agree that 'clear and obvious' errors should not require microscopic analysis.

 

I've said before that I'm not completely against the use of lines to judge tight offsides by VAR, but I can't stand this sleeve length top-of-armpit gnat's-chuff metric they currently use. I also don't agree with the "if you can score a goal with a certain body part, you're offside" school of thought. Just use the position of the player's feet on the ground at the point the ball is played. You don't have to worry about the player being airborne as player's do not leap before a ball is played in, they react to the ball after it has been played. Don't go microscopic. Use a more obvious differential like 1ft (the systems used can calibrate distance already).

 

Also, get rid of the rule where a player already in an offside position benefits from a defender touching the ball into his path, thereby playing him onside again. The defending player's instinct is to block and get rid when an opponent is in a threatening position so the defender is hardly likely to deliberately pass the ball to an already offside player.

 

If an attacker is being deemed to be offside because his top of his sleeve was a millimetre ahead of the last defender, why should he be deemed onside in a different situation when well clear of the last defender before the ball was inadvertantly played into his path by the defending team?

 

If a player is offside and the ref's assistant keeps their flag down so VAR can intervene if it results in a goal, this is something else that needs changing. I think any subsequent outcome of the player being offside should be ruled invalid and a free kick given to the defending team from the spot where the offside occurred. Any foul play following the non-flagged incident that merits a yellow card minimum should still see the offender be penalised with a card, but the initial offside infringement should be the primary factor in restarting play. So no more corners and free kicks to the attacking team stemming from their own player being offside and the flag not being raised even though it didn't result in a goal. And incidents like the Virg/T-Rex derby collision would see the blooshite get a free kick for the offside, but Pickford get at least a yellow for the reckless challenge that followed.

 

As with so many things, they've got it arse-backwards in my opinion.