The Video Assistant Referee (VAR)

[blunther]

19 hours ago, PieFacE said:

I don't hugely disagree with the overall sentiment of your post and personally i'm a point where I'd like to see VAR get put in the bin, but I would say that at least the way they handle offside is almost black and white to some degree. You don't see a lot of "big club bias" when it comes to offsides and VAR and I think that's largely due to the fact that they have to draw those lines regardless. Remove that then you have a whole grey area again which is even more frustrating.

Of the long list of things wrong with VAR i'd say the way they handle offsides is probably bottom of that list for me. 

There are the examples of players in an offside position, in view of the keeper but not playing the ball being given/not being given as offside depending on what team is playing though. See McGinn's goal against Arsenal vs Arsenal's third against us this season. There was one the other week too which unsurprisingly went in favour of the 'big' team, when you can guarantee if the shirts were switched a different decision would be given.

[StefanAVFC]

The wildest thing about VAR is the high bar.

The Eze penalty which everyone agrees was absolutely not a pen, was not overturned because of the high bar, with the regulations going as far to say that if it was overturned it would be a VAR error.

It's a joke.

[bobzy]

1 hour ago, StefanAVFC said:

The wildest thing about VAR is the high bar.

The Eze penalty which everyone agrees was absolutely not a pen, was not overturned because of the high bar, with the regulations going as far to say that if it was overturned it would be a VAR error.

It's a joke.

It depends if you want every decision on the pitch scrutinised.

I posted a Guardian Football Weekly special on the rules thread (I think?) and it's a really good listen.  Highlights some of the problems that we face with decisions.  There was an example of them showing something like a soft penalty award where the defender had his arm on the attacker (possibly not too dissimilar to the Eze one, but they don't mention which incident) to a room of referees - there were, say, 47 refs there.  6 thought it was a penalty, 41 didn't.  They discussed why they had those views.  There was then another incident shown and the split was something like 22 to 25.

There aren't the same objective decisions in football as there are in tennis, for example.  Referrals there are all about a ball being "out" or not.  Here, it's whether a referee essentially feels they can overrule another referee on a decision which is subjective - and the feelings around those instances will vary wildly depending on which referees are involved.

[StefanAVFC]

15 hours ago, bobzy said:

It depends if you want every decision on the pitch scrutinised.

I posted a Guardian Football Weekly special on the rules thread (I think?) and it's a really good listen.  Highlights some of the problems that we face with decisions.  There was an example of them showing something like a soft penalty award where the defender had his arm on the attacker (possibly not too dissimilar to the Eze one, but they don't mention which incident) to a room of referees - there were, say, 47 refs there.  6 thought it was a penalty, 41 didn't.  They discussed why they had those views.  There was then another incident shown and the split was something like 22 to 25.

There aren't the same objective decisions in football as there are in tennis, for example.  Referrals there are all about a ball being "out" or not.  Here, it's whether a referee essentially feels they can overrule another referee on a decision which is subjective - and the feelings around those instances will vary wildly depending on which referees are involved.

I dunno. I get what you’re saying but the 6 refs saying that’s a penalty need either a new job or a new pair or glasses. And therein lies the problem, we’re saying IMO obvious mistakes like that are subjective decisions, then where does it end? Any contact can be a penalty because of the subjectivity of the ref? 
 

If you also take into account the directive  on letting more go (as demonstrated by Gillett on Sunday) it makes absolutely no sense. You can wrestle someone to the ground outside of the area with no foul but brushing an attacker in the box is a pen and it’s fine because it’s a subjective decision made bythe ref and therefore not a mistake. 

It’s inconsistent and confusing. Probably for players but definitely for fans. 
 

we need independent refs doing VAR so they don’t feel they’re overruling their colleagues. Or, less reluctance to send them to the monitor so they can take a 2nd look at a decision they may have got wrong. That bit I really don’t get. 

Edited May 3, 2023 by StefanAVFC

[bobzy]

29 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

I dunno. I get what you’re saying but the 6 refs saying that’s a penalty need either a new job or a new pair or glasses. And therein lies the problem, we’re saying IMO obvious mistakes like that are subjective decisions, then where does it end? Any contact can be a penalty because of the subjectivity of the ref? 
 

If you also take into account the directive  on letting more go (as demonstrated by Gillett on Sunday) it makes absolutely no sense. You can wrestle someone to the ground outside of the area with no foul but brushing an attacker in the box is a pen and it’s fine because it’s a subjective decision made bythe ref and therefore not a mistake. 

It’s inconsistent and confusing. Probably for players but definitely for fans. 
 

we need independent refs doing VAR so they don’t feel they’re overruling their colleagues. Or, less reluctance to send them to the monitor so they can take a 2nd look at a decision they may have got wrong. That bit I really don’t get. 

On bold bit, essentially yes.  Some may deem that Eze was put off balance by the defender and therefore it's a foul even though the contact is slight.  Some may feel that there isn't enough contact to mean he's impeded.  It's always going to be subjective unless there's a 100% error (i.e: a player has dived), which is why looking at some incidents against others, with different referees, will often have a different outcome.  The handball rule is an almost perfect example because that should be less open to interpretation... but it still is.

They talk about everything that fans talk about.  There's a particularly good relayed discussion with Andre Marriner about the influence that players can have or a crowd can have.  They have pre-determined things in their head before a game such as which players are more likely to simulate and, therefore, there's a bias planted which means they may not be given a free kick which other players are.  Referees also review how a first half has gone - even to the point where they "even up" decisions if they are aware they've made a mistake.  Can't remember which ex-ref it is (might be Clattenburg?) but they give an example of awarding a decision which wasn't correct, purely because they got a similar one wrong in the first half and they therefore evened it up - I think the argument was that it was "better for the game, even if not right as an individual incident".  There's also some statistic about how a home team has 40% more decisions in their favour (or something along those lines) purely due to the pressure a referee feels from a home crowd.

We expect referees to be robots but also don't expect referees to be robots.  It's almost impossible for them to get through a game without making one set of fans feel they were unjust to their team.  And yet "decision accuracy" (which they are measured on) has apparently never been better.

Our match threads seem to have a predisposition that a referee is going to be bad and Villa are treated unfairly.  There are comments galore about it - people seek it out - yet this is likely the same for every single fan base out there.  I remember our game against Newcastle where there were loads of comments about how Newcastle were just kicking lumps and getting away with it.  Head to the Newcastle forum and there's loads of comments about how Villa players were going down far too easily and conning the ref.  Both can't be correct, but both views were held; so which is 'right'?

VAR has made the game better in terms of correct decision making.  Referees are fitter than they've ever been.  The issue is that we now have so many more replays and angles and scrutiny of every single decision in real time that it can feel like the game is somehow being refereed worse than before.  If you stripped out VAR, there'd be many more mistakes... but probably less fuss because "oh well, it happens and we can't do anything about it".

 

(Link is here for the listen by the way - it's really good:  https://www.theguardian.com/football/audio/2023/apr/21/the-audio-long-read-the-impossible-job-inside-the-world-of-premier-league-referees)

[StefanAVFC]

2 hours ago, bobzy said:

On bold bit, essentially yes.  Some may deem that Eze was put off balance by the defender and therefore it's a foul even though the contact is slight.  Some may feel that there isn't enough contact to mean he's impeded.  It's always going to be subjective unless there's a 100% error (i.e: a player has dived), which is why looking at some incidents against others, with different referees, will often have a different outcome.  The handball rule is an almost perfect example because that should be less open to interpretation... but it still is.

They talk about everything that fans talk about.  There's a particularly good relayed discussion with Andre Marriner about the influence that players can have or a crowd can have.  They have pre-determined things in their head before a game such as which players are more likely to simulate and, therefore, there's a bias planted which means they may not be given a free kick which other players are.  Referees also review how a first half has gone - even to the point where they "even up" decisions if they are aware they've made a mistake.  Can't remember which ex-ref it is (might be Clattenburg?) but they give an example of awarding a decision which wasn't correct, purely because they got a similar one wrong in the first half and they therefore evened it up - I think the argument was that it was "better for the game, even if not right as an individual incident".  There's also some statistic about how a home team has 40% more decisions in their favour (or something along those lines) purely due to the pressure a referee feels from a home crowd.

We expect referees to be robots but also don't expect referees to be robots.  It's almost impossible for them to get through a game without making one set of fans feel they were unjust to their team.  And yet "decision accuracy" (which they are measured on) has apparently never been better.

Our match threads seem to have a predisposition that a referee is going to be bad and Villa are treated unfairly.  There are comments galore about it - people seek it out - yet this is likely the same for every single fan base out there.  I remember our game against Newcastle where there were loads of comments about how Newcastle were just kicking lumps and getting away with it.  Head to the Newcastle forum and there's loads of comments about how Villa players were going down far too easily and conning the ref.  Both can't be correct, but both views were held; so which is 'right'?

VAR has made the game better in terms of correct decision making.  Referees are fitter than they've ever been.  The issue is that we now have so many more replays and angles and scrutiny of every single decision in real time that it can feel like the game is somehow being refereed worse than before.  If you stripped out VAR, there'd be many more mistakes... but probably less fuss because "oh well, it happens and we can't do anything about it".

 

(Link is here for the listen by the way - it's really good:  https://www.theguardian.com/football/audio/2023/apr/21/the-audio-long-read-the-impossible-job-inside-the-world-of-premier-league-referees)

Interesting post and listen but I think at its core we fundamentally disagree. You think the standards are higher now, I think they’re lower which is unforgivable considering the technology. 
 

That an overturn of the Eze dive would be classed as a mistake under these regulations is enough proof of that for me. By semantics the ref got that decision right, and so did VAR despite 99/100 fans saying it 100% was not a pen. That’s an increase in standards in the blotting paper but it completely fails the eye test. It’s fundamentally a poor decision by a poor ref. 
 

There’s a similar issue with the analysis of Dale Johnson at ESPN. 
 

Also one more thing, going back to what you bolded. Why in the penalty area is any contact apparently a penalty, yet players can have absolute lumps kicked out of them outside of the area with no consequence? It’s complete insanity IMO. All players and fans want is consistency. What we have is the total opposite. 

Edited May 3, 2023 by StefanAVFC

[bobzy]

1 hour ago, StefanAVFC said:

Also one more thing, going back to what you bolded. Why in the penalty area is any contact apparently a penalty, yet players can have absolute lumps kicked out of them outside of the area with no consequence? It’s complete insanity IMO. All players and fans want is consistency. What we have is the total opposite. 

I think it's always been that way and is possibly two-fold:
1 - A lot of non-penalty area fouls get waved on as advantage.  Partly because there can be an advantage in keeping the ball rather than having a free kick and often because a player is more often than not looking for a pass/the ball happens to fall to a team mate.
2 - It's more fitting to have a higher punishment in the penalty area than outside it to encourage more goals in the game.

I don't think "any" contact is necessarily a penalty, though.  That Eze one is probably given like 5 times in 100 or something - just happened to be one of the 5.

Edited May 3, 2023 by bobzy

[StefanAVFC]

3 minutes ago, bobzy said:

I don't think "any" contact is necessarily a penalty, though.  That Eze one is probably given like 5 times in 100 or something - just happened to be one of the 5.

I think that’s *incredibly* generous. I’ve yet to see anyone say it was pen, and I’ve read/heard a lot of views on it across different mediums. Literally the only person I’ve seen think it was a pen is Craig Pawson. That’s including palace fans who are biased. 

[bobzy]

1 minute ago, StefanAVFC said:

I think that’s *incredibly* generous. I’ve yet to see anyone say it was pen, and I’ve read/heard a lot of views on it across different mediums. Literally the only person I’ve seen think it was a pen is Craig Pawson. That’s including palace fans who are biased. 

I don't give enough of a shit to read Palace fan forums to be honest

But then the discussion isn't "should this have been a penalty?", it's more "why was this not overturned?", right?  The answer is the subjectivity of football.

[StefanAVFC]

5 minutes ago, bobzy said:

I don't give enough of a shit to read Palace fan forums to be honest

But then the discussion isn't "should this have been a penalty?", it's more "why was this not overturned?", right?  The answer is the subjectivity of football.

If it’s as blatant a non-pen as it was, then as a minimum the ref should be sent to check whether what he thought he saw is the reality. He could have thought he saw more contact or a clash of legs for example. 
 

And as i said earlier, the situation is *that* broken that if the ref was sent to the screen, it would classed as an error within PGMOL’s pen criteria. ‘Better standards’ completely fail the eye test if pens like that being upheld count as correct. It’s not surprising people ‘feel’ that standards are worse if that’s the case. 

Edited May 3, 2023 by StefanAVFC

[bobzy]

2 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

If it’s as blatant a non-pen as it was, then as a minimum the ref should be sent to check whether what he thought he saw is the reality. 
 

And as i said earlier, the situation is *that* broken that if the ref was sent to the screen, it would classed as an error within PGMOL’s pen criteria. ‘Better standards’ completely fail the eye test if pens like that being upheld count as correct in your view. 

I don't know if they class that penalty award as "correct" or not.  I can just see why it wasn't overturned.  Otherwise...

20 hours ago, bobzy said:

It depends if you want every decision on the pitch scrutinised.

...it's this.

[StefanAVFC]

7 minutes ago, bobzy said:

I don't know if they class that penalty award as "correct" or not.  I can just see why it wasn't overturned.  Otherwise...

...it's this.

I want obvious refereeing errors scrutinised yes. That’s a huge jump to saying I want every decision no? 
 

They class the lack of VAR intervention correct because there’s *any* contact. Therefore Pawson being sent to the screen would be an error in their view despite, in almost everyone’s opinion, it’s the correct thing to do. 
 

I edited my post in response to you saying that people feel standards are worse even though you say they’re better. That clearly fails the eye test in almost everyone’s view. 

Edited May 3, 2023 by StefanAVFC

[bobzy]

6 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

I want obvious refereeing errors scrutinised yes. That’s a huge jump to saying I want every decision no? 
 

They class the lack of VAR intervention correct because there’s *any* contact. Therefore Pawson being sent to the screen would be an error in their view despite, in almost everyone’s opinion, it’s the correct thing to do. 
 

I edited my post in response to you saying that people feel standards are worse even though you say they’re better. That clearly fails the eye test in almost everyone’s view. 

What's obvious to you isn't to someone else, though.  You can't survey people at a moment in time.  Someone could see something as an obvious foul and another person doesn't.  So you're basically going to get a referee to a screen for big decisions in every game "just in case".

 

On the standards, they're definitely better!  I don't know what makes you think they aren't.  It might be the increased scrutiny that VAR/social media has created, but decisions are often corrected.  That in itself means more is correct.

I think people expected the introduction of VAR to remove controversial decisions but it can't possibly do that because referees are human and decisions are subjective.

 

[StefanAVFC]

4 minutes ago, bobzy said:

What's obvious to you isn't to someone else, though.  You can't survey people at a moment in time.  Someone could see something as an obvious foul and another person doesn't.  So you're basically going to get a referee to a screen for big decisions in every game "just in case".

 

That’s incorrect. I want them to go to the screen for obvious mistakes. Literally the only person (seemingly) in the world who thought it was a penalty was Craig Pawson. 
 

Anyway this is a completely pointless conversation. You clearly think standards are higher than ever, I couldn’t disagree more so what’s the point of continuing? 

[StefanAVFC]

Another horrific dive given by a shocking ref and upheld by VAR. 

[AshVilla]

There has to be money being exchanged behind the scenes.

I can think of no other explanation.

Mistakes being made in isolation i can understand but these past 3 or 4 matches for Liverpool have been an absolute joke.

Edited May 3, 2023 by AshVilla

[StefanAVFC]

I legitimately can’t remember the last time a player was booked in the PL for diving. It’s like they want more simulation with the recent decisions. 

[a-k]

20 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Another horrific dive given by a shocking ref and upheld by VAR. 

Putting aside consistency, teams benefiting from it, and whether or not all fouls in the box should automatically be a penalty, I actually don't think it's that bad of a decision. Diop dwells instead of booting it clear, Nunez pokes it away, then, as a result of the "miskick" due to Nunez nicking the ball, Diop impedes Nunez by having his leg left out blocking Nunez's path. Within a split second, Nunez has to adjust otherwise he runs at full speed into Diop's leg, a potential injury waiting to happen for both. I think it's a foul notwithstanding any contact. I'm not really sure what else Nunez is supposed to do in that situation, break Diop's leg?

[StefanAVFC]

1 minute ago, a-k said:

Putting aside consistency, teams benefiting from it, and whether or not all fouls in the box should automatically be a penalty, I actually don't think it's that bad of a decision. Diop dwells instead of booting it clear, Nunez pokes it away, then, as a result of the "miskick" due to Nunez nicking the ball, Diop impedes Nunez by having his leg left out blocking Nunez's path. Within a split second, Nunez has to adjust otherwise he runs at full speed into Diop's leg, a potential injury waiting to happen for both. I think it's a foul notwithstanding any contact. I'm not really sure what else Nunez is supposed to do in that situation, break Diop's leg?

He’s already mid air before contact (if there is any)

we can’t be giving fouls for attackers contacting defenders. 

[a-k]

9 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

He’s already mid air before contact (if there is any)

we can’t be giving fouls for attackers contacting defenders. 

He has to be in the air before contact. If he does not go to air then he crashes straight into Diop's leg. That's why I said it's a foul even without any contact.

Edited May 3, 2023 by a-k