[Albion] IF VAR had been in place in the PL THIS season...

[Bry Nylon]

Burnley's pen made it 0-3. If the handball by Hendrick had been given and the penalty scored, that would have made it 1-2; game still on rather than game over, but no guarantee of any extra points.

Good point. My mistake.

 

[Gazwag]

Number 2 is not a VAR call.

Apart from that you oppose VAR because it would result in correct decisions being made, and that would be like Japanese Knotweed?

Perhaps you can also explain how goal line technology has ruined our game. The end of tackling from behind, too. And let's not forget use of three substitutions, and the offside rule. Add in a bit of racist banter and we are only one flask and plastic bottle top away from the 1950s.

Rationing, we need that back too.

Goal line technology is a FACT not an OPINION - as shown in the cup semi, opinions matter and the top 6 will get the better of the opinions as they do without VAR

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

At what cost though?

Many of the things you mentioned facetiously in your prior post have caused interruptions in play. The game is already more stop-start than it used to be.

Our goal against Newcastle for example was a long time coming, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, long term friends and even strangers embrace and rejoice. How great would it have been to see VAR CHECKING on the screens after that? Then disallowed because 3 pixels of Gross's knee was shown to be behind the defensive line.

Then there are interpretations of certain events which seem to have little to no consistency. Walker forcibly motioned his head towards our player, VAR checked this and somehow ruled this was not a red card offence. Instead he was presented with a yellow which was utterly baffling. Are we to believe that Duffy was sent off wrongly then? Pundits spend hours debating certain decisions and can't come to a consensus, even former referees disagree. I'd rather debatable decisions be made in an instant, than after 3-5mins as the paying fans sit/stand and wait for an equally contentious outcome.

I have pulled out the three salient points of you post, if you will allow....

1. More stop-start, yes. More exciting though, due to fitness and one rule change - backpasses to keepers can't be picked up. It is simply . . . change....

2. If VAR had correctly ruled out our goal against Newcastle it would have been a tragedy, but it would have been correctly ruled out by definition. The clue is in the 'correctly' bit.

3. As I said previously, VAR will work if it is tweaked. The main tweaking will be ensuring that referees do not faff about and do not overrule correct VAR advice from VAR central. As I also noted, deliberate and unconscious sabotage may occur and this will need to be watched. Referees may faff about, for example. They are supposed to ask whether it was a foul, offside, etc, not argue the toss with the boys at VAR central. If they start arguing they will need to be investigated later. Record the VAR conversations and have VAR management (essentially this will be the referees association or the PL - the PL must decide) review the conversations if faffing becomes endemic. I have seen how long it can take to get a small child to bed at night if you start engaging with their tedious bollocks. The VAR team need to be able to be form with wayward refs.

The screen review presently occurs when VAR central can't decide. Now, on this matter, if VAR central can't decide, then I would say bugger the referee having a look at the same recording. Just let the referee decide based on his and the VAR team's uncertainy and whimsy. There is no need for the ref to goggle at replays of the same incident that has baffled the VAR people. So as part of this the VAR team should include an actual referee (maybe it already does). Yes or bloody no, that is all that needs to be known. Exactly the same process as occurs when the ref watches the live action, or the linesperson sees something in live action the ref didn'y, VAR should be like an extra lino, but with the benefit of replays. Bloody simple.

Finally, yes, some decisions require interpretation and knowledge of the rules, and variation in this between referees will result in inconsisteny of decision making - with or without VAR. So umming and ahhing about a contentious head butt/shove/nudge/kiss/cuddle will be the same old problem, and again if the ref in real time or the VAR in replay can't decide then the ref should err on the side of generosity (unless there is visible injury - and there never is in these instances) and VAR, with the benefit of its replays, can advise likewise. The present tendency to micro slo-mo the film to see if there was an angstrom gap between foreheads which legally is no butt is pathetioc and studpid, but it is no more stupid than the real time guessing going on now. Frankly if there is no mark the head mover should be booked for tittishness and nothing more. No need for VAR to micro analyse for legal assault when there is no visible injury. That is a pathetic abuse of VAR, just as the referee trying to recall what he may have seen when a player writhes on the floor with no visible head injury after a so called butt is also an abuse of process.

So, in summary, VAR is good, referees are human, and referees can make VAR work as long as they actively train to use it properly and don't sabotage it .

And PS, I agree that the Ritual of the Foam, and the Pacing is pathetic, but this again is referees faffing about rather than getting bloody on with it. Referees wast more time than time wasting goal keepers. They even collude with time wasting goal keepers by letting them waste time. Book the ****er for the first offense and it will vanish overnight.

In summary, referees are supposed to police the game and ensure it flows, not ponce about like a cross between a second rate school games master (not the proper one, but the RE teacher who is drafted in to referee house football matches, and has a private agenda to elevate the moral rectitude of the boys) and the legal teams in Jarndyce v Jarndyce. When VAR doesn't work it will be because the referee actually is a wanker.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Goal line technology is a FACT not an OPINION - as shown in the cup semi, opinions matter and the top 6 will get the better of the opinions as they do without VAR

That is a beautifully succinct point, and I can't argue with it. However there are many other 'facts' that are missed in real time and VAR will fix this. Only the decisions that will always be a matter of opinion will be unresolvable by VAR in terms of absolute truth, and subject to 'big club bias' decisions (if this is an actual phenomenon - I am not persuaded).

But I acknowledge that above and offer solutions. Bunging out VAR (you don't advocate that, I accept, butothers do) is not even worth a tiny thought. Similarly speed limits have little effect on death by drunken driving, but bunging out speed limits is not intended to be a solution to drink driving.

 

[amexer]

For fouls and hand balls unless it is 100% certain it is referees opinion and not those looking at a screen that should count. Take Bruno tripping there forward on Saturday. Referees opinion no penalty but if he had given it would have been accepted. Worst scenario is VAR contacting ref to say there opinion is different .

 

[ManOfSussex]

At home to Palace, prior to Duffy's rush of blood and red card and the substitution, corner and goal from Balogun that followed, there was a penalty shout not given on Murray by Tomkins, which looked more of a penalty than McArthur's challenge on Izqueirdo that was. The delay for the VAR review for that alone could have changed the course of events from the heated moments that followed, even if the penalty wasn't subsequently awarded.