Yep, Wolves had a similar one chalked off. However, the brown stuff won't hit the fan until the mousers lose and Salah is booked for diving rather than win a penalty, then the anti-VAR mob will be demanding a referendum.
The Citeh Sunday hymn has been updated : VAR, my Lord. VAR. < repeat twice > Oh my Lord, VAR. Plastics are crying my Lord, VAR. < repeat twice > Oh my Lord, VAR. It happened again my Lord, VAR. < repeat twice > Oh my Lord, VAR. They thought they'd scored my Lord, VAR. < repeat twice > Oh my Lord, VAR. Tottenham Hotspur, my Lord. VAR. < repeat twice > Oh my Lord, VAR.
And likewise none of the Leicester players appealed- a point that was highlighted 'against' us yesterday.
Saturdays decision (and the Wolves one) though verified by VAR, is not really about VAR - they are about the changes to the laws of the game introduced by IFAB for the current season. I know that today we love them, because it got us a point over the weekend that we didn't deserve, but I am sure that we will be the victims ourselves in the not too distant future. I don't like changes to the laws that cannot be effective at every level of the game, the 2 'handball' goals that have already been disallowed can only be disallowed in matches where VAR is in operation, and for me who has refereed at local league and watched a lot of lower league football I can guarantee that those goals would have been awarded at those levels. I could understand them changing the laws so that a goal cannot be scored if the ball has hit the hand of the goalscorer, but I think this law change will disallow too many good goals. I said in my moan about offsides in the light of Citys match at the spammers that goals are the essence of football, and minimal offsides and minor deflections off of peoples arms causing goals to be disallowed is not the direction that I want to see the game heading in. I am quite happy that I will probably see more matches at Priestfield than at Spurs this season, from the point of view that my joy/despair at seeing a goal scored will not be tempered by a referee watching TV in a studio miles from the stadium.
I completely agree. I can imagine the meeting where the new handball rules were agreed upon... "What we need is complete certainty. There can be no doubt over a decision. If we achieve this, what problems can there be?" Well, you can lose one of the central premises of the game...that cheating should be punished significantly more than accidental actions. Some of the penalties given and goals overturned under the new interpretations make a mockery of this. Meanwhile players continue to dive (Arsenal), commit continual cynical fouls (Citeh), play overly aggressively (Watford, Bournemouth, Burnley) and there's no sign of addressing these issues. VAR continues to duck giving red cards and diving anywhere on the pitch should be reviewed and yellow cards issued. It's poor but it was ever thus.
Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I have no complaints given Spurs have already been victim of one in the CL final We know the acid tests will be when the Man Utds or Poools get goals such as the Citeh "winner" disallowed, when the opponent is a Brighton or Burnley. Time will tell on those ...
Spot on. It's just that VAR is used to detect these accidental glancing blows to the little finger or whatever by a player who played no discernible role in the goal. These pernickety rules - and the application of technology to uphold them - are making the game a lot less appealing so far. It's reducing football to a level of pedantry more associated with law or politics - not a good look.
This is surely the most important point against VAR. This has created two forms of football, one at the elite level with computers and cameras and off site referees and the other with unenforceable rules. At this rate football will be unrecognisable in 50 years time.
For me, this dichotomy between officiating at the elite level, where a hundred million pounds can be at stake in a single match, and parks football isn't so much of a problem. I'd expect there to be a difference. There is in elite cricket, tennis, rugby, etc. For the world's premier sport to stick its head in the sand regarding available technology wouldn't make any sense. However, it's clearly not right, as it is being implemented currently. Changing a whole load of rules, at the same time as taking the system out for a test run, was just dumb. Returning to the age old principle of intentional hand ball and limiting the amount of time to overturn a decision would be much preferable to my 'traditionalist' mind. All this 'unnatural body shape' is just nonsense brought about by people who've never played the game. I think that there will be further changes before very long to return us to a more sensible state of affairs. I bloody hope so.
There are lots of aspects of VAR I don't like, such as: the idea it can be used as an absolute - when it has an error margin built in (which could be incorporated in decisions), if there are millimetres in it then clearly VAR should not be taken as completely accurate the time taken (it should have a time limit, if it exceeds the time limit then the decision by definition is not "clear and obvious", so VAR doesn't, or shouldn't, apply. the affect on atmosphere at the ground and on celebrations etc BUT it does seem to have an impact on injustice - not so much that wrong decisions are overturned, but wrong decisions in with regard to certain clubs. Let us be clear (as others have suggested), if this decision hadn't gone against Citeh then nobody would be discussing it the next day, let alone three days later. And the elephant in the room which the pundits never address is that decisions are clearly lopsided in favour of the big clubs. There are reasons for this, for example it must be really hard for refs to give controversial decisions against certain clubs, there is so much pressure on them because, as we discover, a decision against the big club is discussed and against smaller clubs is ignored or quickly forgotten. The brilliance of VAR is that Oliver can stand there when confronted by Citeh players and say, "it's not be, it's the guys at VAR". This must take so much pressure off the refs. For this reason I think we'll see more even decisions, and the game will be better for it. Because I've heard so many times now "scrap the new handball laws, use common sense". A fine sentiment - if common sense was applied evenly. But it's not going to be. You can look at the same situations and see that refs could give different decisions depending on who is going to benefit. Think common sense would have led to the same decision on Sunday? Well if we didn't have the new handball law and *if* the ref had seen it (and there's another point in favour of VAR, he didn't), he might still have given a handball if the goal was being scored against Citeh (or Pool) instead of for them. You don't think so? How close was the title race last season really? How many points did Pool get from dodgy decisions? Let's see how these rules with VAR works out over the course of the season. As was mentioned, there's still plenty of opportunity for people to get away with stuff, but VAR seems to cut down on those opportunities, which I think is a good thing.
In summary : 1. CONSISTENT decisions 2. FASTER decision making 3. Spectator viewing of the incident review footage (after the final decision) . Time will tell on #1. On #2, it would be interesting to have the stats on the early/current days of Rugby Union TMO systems (what was the average decision making time at the outset, what is it now) . Once the PL officials "get into a rhythm" with VAR, then the review cycles will get much shorter. On #3, the spectator can never be denied seeing what a broadcast viewer will get ad-nauseum once VAR is triggered.
Just highlights the pressure they are under re certain teams. Basically everything refs do re Citeh, Pool, ManU etc is going to be under so much more scrutiny that is it any wonder that they often take the easier path.
The new handball rule is good because it enables objectvely verifiable decisions without altering the game for the worse. They got it right for once. They still need to make other rules as objective as possible create VAR half as good and fast as the one tennis uses. There are robotics places that could do that for five or ten million, I think.
In tennis there is only one moving object to track, so it is obviously easier. It is not proactive as it only affects the match if a player challenges a line call. It is not available for other situations like foot faults or double bounce. It is accepted by players and officials and, more importantly, by the media, but it has been used for many years and they are not outraged when the calls go against their favourites. Do you ever see headlines about Federer denied title by Hawkeye. Eventually VAR will be accepted for what it is which is a system to stop a number of outrageously incorrect calls by officials.