VAR

[PeterWithesShin]

Dammit I wanted to see how many fell for it!

[wittonwarrior]

Killing the game and only 4 weeks in

[dave shelley]

VAR or no VAR, Friend would still have disallowed the goal...because he's incompetent.

[ez]

It decided it wasn’t a clear and obvious error..

Was it a penalty or not?  It shouldn’t matter if it’s clear and/or obvious.  VAR should be in place to assist unclear/non obvious decisions.

So in effect var is sitting on the fence. Dean Smith should request clarification on the sequence of events.

Apparently var look at all goals now so if Friend had not judged it a dive and given a goal would var have intervened and disallowed the goal? Highly unlikely I'd say.

[in exile]

I think you need two refs in the VAR centre for subjective decisions, that along with the referee on the pitch mans that these important and doubted decisions can be decided by the majority decision.

It could slow it down, but if we must have the system we have to do what is needed to make it worthwhile.

Every VAR ref has an assistant

[paul_e]

There's a whole bunch of problems here.

VAR can't review because the whistle went as Lansbury was shooting.
Diving or penalty is, in this case, being treated as a binary decision but it clearly isn't, there's plenty of cases where a player can go down in a tackle but not have dived or expect a foul, looking at the reaction of Jack that seems to be the case here. VAR shouldn't be having to decide if it was a dive or if it should be a penalty, was it a dive yes or no, is it a penalty yes or no, 2 separate decisions (and both no in my opinion). This wouldn't have given us a goal but it would remove the yellow card.
To play devils advocate it could be that Friend believed VAR wouldn't be allowed to disallow the goal because of a dive so felt he had to stop play. If that's the case then VAR as it stands isn't working because the whole point is that you let the play flow and then review once the ball goes dead.

For VAR to be accepted there has to be more transparency so the conversation between the ref and VAR needs to be on the tannoy. That's a big part of why the decisions in rugby and cricket are accepted without much argument by either side. In this case we may well have heard that the only option VAR had was to give a penalty and it decided there wasn't enough contact for that meaning everything else stays with the decisions of Friend. Doesn't make the decision any better and doesn't stop the goal being disallowed but it makes the VAR portion make sense and pins the blame firmly on the ref.

[Des Little]

Excellent post, Paul and my thoughts exactly.  The only way they are going to gain supporters' trust (by that i mean those in the ground), is to make the conversation audible and visible to everyone present.  Until they do, people are naturally going to harbour conspiracy beliefs, as we did on Saturday.  Additionally, the whole set up of who calls the shots needs reviewing too - Mike Riley isn't fit for purpose.

[Ads]

The absence of consistency is what's always been frustrating.

Would we have lost to Bournemouth if Billings had walked inside 40 minutes like he should have done? Trez deserved to be sent off, but Billings got away with 4 bookable offences.

So here we sit, with 3 points instead of 4, maybe 5 points because of gross incompetence directly impacting results. And where's VAR?

An atrocious system.

[KRS]

It wasn’t taken to VAR because apparently that twat of a referee blew his whistle before the ball hit the back of the net. VAR cannot be blamed in its current use due to the actions of an incompetent match official making up and enforcing his own version of the rules.

[Brend'Watkins]

Dammit I wanted to see how many fell for it!

For what purpose?

[PeterWithesShin]

Dammit I wanted to see how many fell for it!

For what purpose?

Shit gallows humour.

[Abbeyfealeavfc]

VAR=Very Annoying Referee and we seem to get plenty of those.
At present I see no point in it especially if a dickhead referee pre-empts its use by blowing his whistle as KF did Saturday.
I would respect it more if it was used to review a poor decision by a referee.
Friend's performance needs highlighting and punishing and the best way of doing that in a one off exercise, as a warning to all referees to do their job properly, would be for the authorities to award Villa 1 point whilst allowing palace to keep all 3 of theirs. After all players receive retrospective bans. I know this won't happen but something should!
Friend should certainly be made to apologise to the club and its fans publicly as his actions were public Saturday. If he did so his vanity would ensure he would never make that mistake again.

[Dogtanian]

It wasn’t taken to VAR because apparently that twat of a referee blew his whistle before the ball hit the back of the net. VAR cannot be blamed in its current use due to the actions of an incompetent match official making up and enforcing his own version of the rules.

The whistle noise they showed on MOTD didn't sound like any referee's whistle I've ever heard, and as Gary Lineker pointed out, the ref didn't appear to move his hands from his sides at all in the footage.  Maybe he already had his whistle in his mouth ready, who knows!

[baddowvillans]

On the "was it a penalty" question I like a number on here didn't really feel Cahill catching Jack was a penalty but apparently Keith Hackett the former ref does.  No consistency and I guess the only thing that is clear and obvious is that referees don't know what they are doing?

[dave shelley]

I have been out all morning and am wondering if anyone watched SSN?  I ask because they usually have Dermot Gallagher on to discuss any contentious refereeing decisions that have occurred over the weekend.  He's usually quite balanced and I'm wondering what was his take on it, providing he was on.