The Video Assistant Referee (VAR)

[tomav84]

25 minutes ago, ender4 said:

I think just put trackers in the hall and in the boots of every player, and then make offside automated.   If it’s offside as determined by technology then something buzzes/flashes on the ref or linesman’s arm. Then that’s it, no review of it by humans.

sounds like that's being trialed at the moment...possibly even at the upcoming WC. step in the right direction if you ask me. the sooner the whole thing is done by robots the better...the system is fine, but we're never going to get personnel competent enough to use it correctly

[danceoftheshamen]

For me it's occasional incompetence but also largely corruption. If it was purely incompetence it would not nearly always favour the media 6 clubs &/or go against those clubs such as Villa, West Ham Newcastle etc who have the finanicial clout to threaten those media 6 clubs. 

I have no doubt Arsenal fans will be crying about it today after their goal was unsurprisingly disallowed at Old Trafford for a "foul". The thing is that is a typical example of when a big decision does go against a media 6 club, which nearly always is when they are playng another media 6 club. I very much doubt that would have been disallowed against them had it been the same situation at Villa Park for example.

No surprises either that Utd were the beneficiaries of yet another contentious decision, even if it was against another media 6 team. There is clearly a Liverpool / Utd bias even amongst those 6 teams. No doubt in Utd's case they want them back in the top 4 asap to keep those ££££££'s rolling in from Asia & Africa etc.

[Mantis]

4 hours ago, foreveryoung said:

It's not VAR mate, it's the people behind it.

While that's technically correct, VAR allows incompetent/corrupt officials more licence to influence the outcomes of games.

[foreveryoung]

26 minutes ago, Mantis said:

While that's technically correct, VAR allows incompetent/corrupt officials more licence to influence the outcomes of games.

When you keep hearing Sky commenting on fans talking about the top 6 always get the decisions, they always say with vengeance it's ridiculous to think that.  That's when I know suff goes on, when they feel the need to not only bring it up, but defend it.

[ciggiesnbeer]

1 hour ago, danceoftheshamen said:

For me it's occasional incompetence but also largely corruption. If it was purely incompetence it would not nearly always favour the media 6 clubs &/or go against those clubs such as Villa, West Ham Newcastle etc who have the finanicial clout to threaten those media 6 clubs. 

I have no doubt Arsenal fans will be crying about it today after their goal was unsurprisingly disallowed at Old Trafford for a "foul". The thing is that is a typical example of when a big decision does go against a media 6 club, which nearly always is when they are playng another media 6 club. I very much doubt that would have been disallowed against them had it been the same situation at Villa Park for example.

No surprises either that Utd were the beneficiaries of yet another contentious decision, even if it was against another media 6 team. There is clearly a Liverpool / Utd bias even amongst those 6 teams. No doubt in Utd's case they want them back in the top 4 asap to keep those ££££££'s rolling in from Asia & Africa etc.

It is 100% this. Its telling the English FA have never had a serious investigation into corruption and match fixing in the UK. Other European top leagues have investigated and dismissed the ones found guilty thats why their officials are so so much higher quality than England. 

When you have the likes of Souness who obviously doesnt particularly like Villa openly saying "that was a legitimate goal Villa had chalked off, this could matter to them this season. Its just wrong this keeps happening." or Lineker after the ManU debale saying "its very strange and disturbing that the officials seemed to be looking for a reason to disallow Villa's goal" you know its obvious.

Instead we are asked to believe that English officials are inherently morally better than other top leagues officials, so its "inconceivable" they could be crooked. They are and every fan outside of the few favoured clubs know it.

Corruption is killing this league. We need an independent body to investigate English officials, its gone on long enough. 
 

Edited September 4, 2022 by ciggiesnbeer

[MrBlack]

The Newcastle decision is miles worse than the Chelsea one.

The player deemed of commiting the foul is actually the one being fouled. Its madness.

The other is a subjective call, that I'm not sure they got wrong anyway (am i the only one that thinks this?). The striker drags his trailing leg with only one intention, to hit the keeper. The fact he then does connect with him is enough for it to be considered a foul by me. The keeper massively exaggerates the contact so hard to tell how much it actually hurt or stopped him from getting up but there's effectivelu a blatant kick to the ribs that shouldn't go unpunished for me.

[Hornso]

On 04/09/2022 at 06:38, danceoftheshamen said:

So the clear corruption is once again front & central this weekend (as it is every weekend actually but hey ho). We are yet again dished out a disgraceful decision against Man CIty. Just like we were when they re-invented the rule book after the ridiculous offside goal they allowed at theirs the other season and of course when our player was blatantly hauled back last season to prevent him going clean through for a likely 3-0 when we were 2-0 up on the last game at the emptihad. Should have been a red card but of course wasn't.

So I make that 3 in favour of them which in total has cost us 5 points over 3 games.

It's not corrupt though don't you know. Just repeated mistakes which coincidentally always happen to go to the one team.

That's without the rest of the disgraceful decisions today which went either for a media / scummy 6 team or against one of the teams pushing those top 6 teams. How convenient.

I don't think it was corruption, but you can add in the goal from the 2020 League Cup Final which came from a corner that shouldn't have been awarded.

[ozvillafan]

1 hour ago, MrBlack said:

The Newcastle decision is miles worse than the Chelsea one.

The player deemed of commiting the foul is actually the one being fouled. Its madness.

The other is a subjective call, that I'm not sure they got wrong anyway (am i the only one that thinks this?). The striker drags his trailing leg with only one intention, to hit the keeper. The fact he then does connect with him is enough for it to be considered a foul by me. The keeper massively exaggerates the contact so hard to tell how much it actually hurt or stopped him from getting up but there's effectivelu a blatant kick to the ribs that shouldn't go unpunished for me.

I'm with you on that one. His right leg is already above the keeper - meaning he is already in a position to cleanly jump over. I think he saw the keeper spill it and naturally tried to get a foot on it, so he dragged his left leg.

Sadly, it was nowhere near the ball, it makes clear contact with a prone keeper - that's definitely a foul.

The one against ManUre is laughable, though. Fouls called or not called happen all the time and are a part of football. In this case the on field referee gave no foul for the Erikson tackle - so play on. .

[jacketspuds]

The good thing for the FA is that so many poor VAR decisions have stopped anyone giving a shit about the linesman that couldn’t wait to flag one of our players offside when he wasn’t.

[NeilS]

On 03/09/2022 at 20:03, HongKongVillan said:

I don't watch enough football, today's offside goal, their offside goal Vs Mings a few years back, the Rodri handball Vs Everton springs to mind. I'm sure there are many examples of blatant favourism towards this very rich Chav club

 

On 03/09/2022 at 21:38, danceoftheshamen said:

So the clear corruption is once again front & central this weekend (as it is every weekend actually but hey ho). We are yet again dished out a disgraceful decision against Man CIty. Just like we were when they re-invented the rule book after the ridiculous offside goal they allowed at theirs the other season and of course when our player was blatantly hauled back last season to prevent him going clean through for a likely 3-0 when we were 2-0 up on the last game at the emptihad. Should have been a red card but of course wasn't.

So I make that 3 in favour of them which in total has cost us 5 points over 3 games.

It's not corrupt though don't you know. Just repeated mistakes which coincidentally always happen to go to the one team.

That's without the rest of the disgraceful decisions today which went either for a media / scummy 6 team or against one of the teams pushing those top 6 teams. How convenient.

Going back further there was the classic penalty awarded to Man City for handball against Wiemann at the etihad against us back in 2012, when the ball actually hit the post. We must be due a hell of a lot of decisions going our way for these to even themselves out. I won't hold my breath in expectation though.

[danceoftheshamen]

You only have to look at the dodgy decisions we as a club have suffered and who they were against to realise something is badly awry. As stated earlier, if it was just poor judgement, it is not logically possible that it nearly always goes in favour of the media 6 clubs. That is the evidence of corruption right there! In a court of law I would suggest it would be taken as clear evidence.

There are though 3 different groups of matches in the Premier League which offer different outcomes from what I saw when I spent a considerable amount of time looking at this a couple of seasons ago. I still look at it but not with the same amount of depth as it takes up a heck of a lot of time. 

Group 1: Media 6 vs Media 6 club matches.

In this group of games when two media 6 clubs play each other, it appears that the dodgy decisions tend to balance out in the main, although there is a clear slant towards Man Utd (presumably due to their lowly position over the last few seasons), even in these games.

Group 2: Media 6 vs the other 13 teams.

This group of games are actually quite shocking in respect of the clear bias they highlight. An astounding & nonsensical level of the key decisions go in favour of the media 6 clubs in these games (as we saw this weekend for example). Usually the only time one of the other 13 clubs gets a decision in these games is when the game is already "out of sight" meaning it will not have a real impact on the result. It gets particularly bad in these games when the Media 6 club is struggling and often results in a sending off (or failure to send off the media 6 player), a last minute penatly or disallowed goal (as we often see in our games at Old Trafford) and as we saw in the Chelsea West Ham game. This seems to be especially so in the "run in" from Christmas onwards.

Group 3: Other 13 teams vs other 13 teams.

The decisions in these games appear to largely balance out however there does appear to be a bit of a bias towards the London teams even in these games. How many times do we get a wrong un against Palace for example? I remember the "Grealish dive" one a few years back when our good goal was disallowed and again this season when with the game at 1-1 we get a penalty awarded against us for Digne's "hand ball". This was shouted down by all & sundry of course post match. 

The issue with all this is that in the group 1 & group 3 games the results tend to even out. That means that in the majority of matches over a season it gives the appearance of "It all balances out over a season". Fans of the media 6 clubs will always argue against this too because they are effectively subconciously blind to it because their own team is amidst it, if that makes sense? They also make a lot of noise as soon as their team suffers a bad decision, as Fergie always used to do, and of course wherever you go there are loads of Man U, Liverpool, Chelsea & Arsenal fans etc so it is easy to be "shouted down". The fact is though that almost always the odd bad decision they get is indeed against another media 6 club & as stated they tend to balance out in those games. Ask them when they last got a bad decision against one of the other 13 clubs & they'll struggle.

So the real issue is the group 2 games. The Media 6 vs the rest. If you care to monitor these games as a group the corruption is abundantly clear, shockingly so I would suggest. This however gets blurred by the impact from the other two groups.

 

Edited September 5, 2022 by danceoftheshamen

[Stevo985]

20 hours ago, a-k said:

 

Not a defence of VAR, but currently it doesn't have to be an "obvious" offside at all.

[Stevo985]

The Chelsea decision on the weekend could possibly the worst one yet. An absolute farce to be honest.

Again it's not really the fault of the technology, it's the refs enforcing it. But without the technology they wouldn't have the opportunity to overturn a perfectly legit goal.

I was a fierce advocate of VAR, and I've consistently said it's the implementation and not the tech that's the problem.

 

But we're never going to get people who implement it properly. 

We're better off scrapping the whole thing

[bannedfromHandV]

1 hour ago, Stevo985 said:

The Chelsea decision on the weekend could possibly the worst one yet. An absolute farce to be honest.

Again it's not really the fault of the technology, it's the refs enforcing it. But without the technology they wouldn't have the opportunity to overturn a perfectly legit goal.

I was a fierce advocate of VAR, and I've consistently said it's the implementation and not the tech that's the problem.

 

But we're never going to get people who implement it properly. 

We're better off scrapping the whole thing

Wow, finally.

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Wow, finally.

What do you mean finally?

I've been pro-scrapping VAR for like 18 months

[villa4europe]

16 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

What do you mean finally?

I've been pro-scrapping VAR for like 18 months

because PGMOL cant use it properly

this thread will be interesting during the WC cos i think in general FIFA have used it really well and shown it for what it could be if paired with some competence  

I'm hoping FIFA and UEFA actually insist that it stays and eventually the media call out who is really to blame with all of this

[Stevo985]

2 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

because PGMOL cant use it properly

this thread will be interesting during the WC cos i think in general FIFA have used it really well and shown it for what it could be if paired with some competence  

I'm hoping FIFA and UEFA actually insist that it stays and eventually the media call out who is really to blame with all of this

This is the whole reason I thought VAR would be a success. The evidence from FIFA tournaments was that it worked very well. Of course you'd have the odd frustrating incident that was wrong or took time, but generally it worked.

But the implementation here has been absolutely horrific. They've tried to be clever and completely **** it up.

But like I said they're never going to change who has implemented it. The two are too intertwined now. We're better off scrapping it. 

[bannedfromHandV]

46 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

What do you mean finally?

I've been pro-scrapping VAR for like 18 months

I’ve always considered you one of the staunchest supporters of VAR and I recall you being very vocally in favour of introducing it to begin with. Apologies if I’ve mischaracterised you in this, I know your stance had softened over the past year or so but even then it felt like you were more against the implementation rather than the system.

[Stevo985]

2 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

I’ve always considered you one of the staunchest supporters of VAR and I recall you being very vocally in favour of introducing it to begin with. Apologies if I’ve mischaracterised you in this, I know your stance had softened over the past year or so but even then it felt like you were more against the implementation rather than the system.

Nearly 2 years ago:

On 30/11/2020 at 22:21, Stevo985 said:

Scrap it. 

As usual defending something on occasions when it justifies being defended is seen as being a staunch supporter of it.

Just because I play devil's advocate at times when everyone is frothing at the mouth blaming VAR for the rise in energy costs, doesn't mean I support it.

 

It is totally shit. It IS the implementation that is the problem, but the two things are intertwined and have been for so long that it can't be rescued. It needs to go

[tomav84]

i'm 100% in favour of it were it to be used correctly

however i have zero faith that the current crop of PL refs could ever use it the way in which it was designed

they will always look at the subjective decisions and find a way to step in where their interference wasn't required in the first place. i'd love them to be put in front of the camera and answer the question of why they felt they had to get involved in some of these decisions at the weekend but they'll never be accountable for those. a manager has to face the media and answer why his team got thumped 9-0...why do these refs not have to do the same??

people say it would help if we could hear them...i think it would only annoy us more, listening them apply the laws of the game like a school headmaster rather than using common sense

semi automatic offsides is a step in the right direction. the sooner the whole game is ref'd by robots the better