The Video Assistant Referee (VAR)

[Stevo985]

3 minutes ago, bobzy said:

Remember discussing this with you in the past.  Deliberate is far better.  Handballs should be few and far between and the amount of ridiculous ones being given in the World Cup ruined the matches for me.  The same is happening with this rule change - I said at time and will repeat it now, it's a farce.

The only upside is that defenders seemingly aren't punished as severely - which is a bit bizarre, but an improvement.  The rest is utter madness.

I don't agree. If you only gave handballs for the ones that were clearly deliberate there would be about 3 a season.

[bobzy]

2 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

I don't agree. If you only gave handballs for the ones that were clearly deliberate there would be about 3 a season.

Which is fine.  Why do we want to see more penalties for people making no attempt whatsoever to block a ball with their hand/arm?  I don't understand the clamour at all - it just ruins games.

The Man Utd/PSG game is a classic example.  94th minute or whatever.  A shot is terrible, going absolutely miles wide but happens to hit a defenders' arm as he jumps = penalty, PSG knocked out.  Just horrific.  Don't understand the want/need for that at all.

[Keyblade]

Perfectly happy with VAR. The issue still seems to be poor referees and ridiculous and/or vague laws. It's a huge bottleneck for VAR at the moment.

Like in our game. VAR did the right thing in checking the penalty shout, but because of inconsistent refereeing, didn't give the penalty (this also might be because of the PL's implementation of it, as they only seem to give things if the referee made a "clear and obvious error" apparently, whatever that means). 

It was identical to the Heaton penalty, but one is given and the other isn't. Both checked by VAR. The issue here isn't VAR but just poor refereeing. The laws could also be to blame. If they were clear and unambiguous, it would leave less room for the officials to interpret the situations subjectively. 

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, bobzy said:

Which is fine.  Why do we want to see more penalties for people making no attempt whatsoever to block a ball with their hand/arm?  I don't understand the clamour at all - it just ruins games.

The Man Utd/PSG game is a classic example.  94th minute or whatever.  A shot is terrible, going absolutely miles wide but happens to hit a defenders' arm as he jumps = penalty, PSG knocked out.  Just horrific.  Don't understand the want/need for that at all.

But there's plenty of times when defenders block shots with their arms unintentionally or stop crosses coming in unintentionally and it absolutely should be a penalty.

The argument that it's not deliberate doesn't wash. If you've stopped a chance or a goal with your arm it shouldn't be allowed whether you meant it or not.

And the clamour isn't to see MORE penalties. It's to have a clear distinction so that decisions are consistent.

 

What's clear is there needs to be a middle ground somewhere and this current solution isn't it.

Edited August 18, 2019 by Stevo985

[Genie]

5 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

What's clear is there needs to be a middle ground somewhere and this current solution isn't it.

The other challenge is for the rule to be written such that people cannot use it tactically. If the "accidental" thing become law defenders arms would be all over the place. That's why we've got this peculiar "silhouette" wording.

[Mic09]

Danny Murphy slating VAR on MOTD2 makes me like it even more.

No wonder an ex Liverpool believes scoring unlawful goals is in the spirit of the game. What an idiot.

[Keyblade]

1 hour ago, Stevo985 said:

But there's plenty of times when defenders block shots with their arms unintentionally or stop crosses coming in unintentionally and it absolutely should be a penalty.

The argument that it's not deliberate doesn't wash. If you've stopped a chance or a goal with your arm it shouldn't be allowed whether you meant it or not.

And the clamour isn't to see MORE penalties. It's to have a clear distinction so that decisions are consistent.

 

What's clear is there needs to be a middle ground somewhere and this current solution isn't it.

I like the distinction that the arm has to be in an unnatural position. Like if you have your arms in the air for no reason or whatever. But the ball just grazing your arm and it wasn't intentional and they were in a natural position and the other team gets a penalty is just dumb. What's the point of the handball rule anyway then? I thought it would be using your arm to gain an advantage just like offside is against the rules because the attacker gains an advantage from it. But when they're millimeters off, it kind of defeats the purpose no? What advantage is gained from a toe's width? The rules need overhauling imo.

[AVTuco]

The way VAR was used in Womens Worlds would kill all joy from football, and I was ready to come here and moan and moan.

But it has not done it in the PL. It is used faster and in a limited role. That is good.

[Zatman]

Maybe I am a bit biased but the Wesley penalty claim. Yes the keeper got the ball but he still took him out

Keepers are allowed away with murder

[NulliSecundus]

5 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Maybe I am a bit biased but the Wesley penalty claim. Yes the keeper got the ball but he still took him out

Keepers are allowed away with murder

Clearly not in Heaton's case!

[nick76]

I know slightly off topic but watching the Man City/Spurs game, the 94 minute goal ruled out for handball by Laporte is just ridiculous.  I know they have changed the rule that any handball/ball to hand leading to a goal is not counted is plain stupid.  Ball to hand should never be an excuse to rule out a goal, it's just life.  It should only be deliberate intention that should rule out a goal.....another bizarre rule change. 

The game has been brilliant for more than a century and yet the last twenty or so years they keep making slight changes, just leave it.  Happy for VAR to come in as long as everybody understands and it doesnt slow the game but these other changes they can bugger off.

On topic, Martin Atkinson was awful.....

[VillaChris]

I thought it was more obvious goal to rule out than the Wolves handball last week tbh. Probably didn't help it was 94th minute and was going to be winning goal so gets far more reaction than say in 10th minute Man. City should've had a penalty and that somehow didn't get put to VAR.

[sne]

People seem to like the idea of VAR but not the implementation?

For me I can't judge one without the other so for me VAR is as of yet more negative than positive.

Edit: But I've already covered this is in the other VAR thread so...

Edited August 19, 2019 by sne

[StefanAVFC]

Honestly, zero idea how he avoided a red. The first one was a yellow all day, but then the two after as well?

[Stevo985]

Yeah that's not a VAR issue given the current rules, it's just shit reffing. He 100% should have been off.

But I'd argue that second yellow cards are something VAR should look at given it's a game changing decision

(I'd wager red cards would increase as a result as I think it's pretty common for refs to be lenient on that second yellow card)

[Herman22]

There is one thing that is very important to understand if you are to understand the way VAR is going to be used in the Premier League this year. VAR is there to correct "Clear and Obvious" errors made by the on field refs under the headings mentioned above. 

So what the ref does on the pitch is so important. In reality you could have two identical incidents and one will be a pen and one will not. Let's take the Villa game at the weekend. The ref blows for a pen in the first min against Heaton. So the on field decision is pen. The VAR can only say no pen if it is a clear and obvious error by the on field ref and that bar is set high. Even if the VAR feels he wouldn't give a pen the ref has called it as a pen and the VAR may take the view it not clear and obvious error so the on field decision remains. 

In the second half Wesley goes down after a collision with the keeper. On field decision is no pen. Again, the VAR needs to tell the ref, if he wants to overturn the decision, that he has made a clear and obvious error and it's a pen. Another example of this was the pen not given for City against Spurs when the guy is wrestled to the ground. The ref said no pen and the VAR didn't have the balls to overrule it. 

It seems to be the VAR as used in England is having it's hands tied by the rules. 90% of the time the VAR will stick with the on field decision because the bar of 'clear and obvious' is set too high. 

[tom_avfc]

14 minutes ago, Herman22 said:

There is one thing that is very important to understand if you are to understand the way VAR is going to be used in the Premier League this year. VAR is there to correct "Clear and Obvious" errors made by the on field refs under the headings mentioned above. 

So what the ref does on the pitch is so important. In reality you could have two identical incidents and one will be a pen and one will not. Let's take the Villa game at the weekend. The ref blows for a pen in the first min against Heaton. So the on field decision is pen. The VAR can only say no pen if it is a clear and obvious error by the on field ref and that bar is set high. Even if the VAR feels he wouldn't give a pen the ref has called it as a pen and the VAR may take the view it not clear and obvious error so the on field decision remains. 

In the second half Wesley goes down after a collision with the keeper. On field decision is no pen. Again, the VAR needs to tell the ref, if he wants to overturn the decision, that he has made a clear and obvious error and it's a pen. Another example of this was the pen not given for City against Spurs when the guy is wrestled to the ground. The ref said no pen and the VAR didn't have the balls to overrule it. 

It seems to be the VAR as used in England is having it's hands tied by the rules. 90% of the time the VAR will stick with the on field decision because the bar of 'clear and obvious' is set too high. 

This is the issue for me. There's no point in having VAR if they're not going to change decisions. The foul on McGinn at Spurs, the foul by Trezeguet on Saturday and the foul on the Man City player were about as obvious penalties as you're likely to see. If decisions aren't going to be overturned then they should just get rid of VAR as all its doing is slowing down the game.

Just to be clear, I'm all for VAR in general and, as an example, the way which it was used in the men's World Cup led to much more consistent and correct decisions. The way its being used in the Premier League just seems bizarre to me.

[Derryvillan]

So Ref watch on Sky just now.Shows the foul on Luiz and McGinn after the yellow.Not the one straight after it where he cleaned Jack.Sky bloke says he was withdrawn at half time.Dermott Gallagher says "ref must have said to him thats his last chance.Good game management he's one of the best".

Edited August 19, 2019 by Derryvillan

[Pimlico_Villa]

The issue with VAR is that, I believe, it is still operated by Referees. And we all know that Referees are largely incompetent and will do nothing but look out for one another. 

The operators in the studio should be independent. 

[sharkyvilla]

22 minutes ago, Derryvillan said:

So Ref watch on Sky just now.Shows the foul on Luiz and McGinn after the yellow.Not the one straight after it where he cleaned Jack.Sky bloke says he was withdrawn at half time.Dermott Gallagher says "ref must have said to him thats his last chance.Good game management he's one of the best".

Yeah I saw that and it pissed me off.  I generally try not to slag off refs so much but I'd love to hear Atkinson try and explain why he didnt follow a pretty simple law of the game.  I don't think we would simply have steamrolled Bournemouth afterwards but it would make a big difference anyhow.