VAR

[baddowvillans]

I can't agree with that.  Football is not special in terms of other sports.  If it works there it can be made to work here but the administration - Premier League and Referees need to want it to.  I don't sense they do at the moment

[Luke8]

I enjoyed McGinns’s ‘fuck off VAR -  it’s a goal’ celebration today.

Would have been nice to enjoy it for longer than 90 seconds mind.

[frank black]

I celebrated our actual goal at the kick off rather than when it went in.

[AsTallAsLions]

I can't agree with that.  Football is not special in terms of other sports.  If it works there it can be made to work here but the administration - Premier League and Referees need to want it to.  I don't sense they do at the moment

They've made a mockery of the principle of it, and the way it's being applied has 100% taken away from the enjoyment of the game. It's being used as a weapon rather than a tool so far, and that's shameful.

[ChicagoLion]

I had always been in favour of technology being introduced to help refs and get better decisions.
But the way they have decided to deploy this has been a disaster.
They should stop it and go away and experiment until they get it right.
Being able to celebrate a goal is one of the major reasons to attend a game for many but that enjoyment has been taken away.

[The Edge]

I can't agree with that.  Football is not special in terms of other sports.  If it works there it can be made to work here but the administration - Premier League and Referees need to want it to.  I don't sense they do at the moment

As a sport football is a lot more dynamic and fast paced than other sports that use tech. Cricket is simple. For example ball tracking can't fail. Tennis ditto. Rugby is closer in terms of the dynamics of the game and they're pretty good at getting it right. Football is different. Even when they do use var it's often still down to interpretation. Just look at the Grealish incident at Palace. The ref got that wrong and var was unable to correct it. Then theres offsides. They are giving offside for fractions when the rule specifies "when the ball is played" How can var tell the exact moment when it left the players foot. When it's so close there has to be an instruction like "unclear" It's just not working.

[Brend'Watkins]

An offside should take no more than 15 seconds with VAR technology. It's the only thing that it gets consistently right but takes too long to make a decision.  As we've found out, it's currently not much good for anything else.

[danno]

An offside should take no more than 15 seconds with VAR technology. It's the only thing that it gets consistently right but takes too long to make a decision.  As we've found out, it's currently not much good for anything else.

If they did add something like a "must be daylight between attacker and last defender" it would be even easier to see on a replay and even quicker.

Some of the ones it has given e.g. Sterling are just nonsense

[Marlon From Bearwood]

On SSN yesterday they were showing goals from Serie A. In one game the Ref used the pitch side monitor before making his final decision.

Has anyone seen a Ref make use of this facility in the PL? If they have then I’ve missed it. 

[Luke8]

I mentioned the same having seen it used in La Liga.

I read something saying that referees have been discouraged from using it due to the longer delays it would cause. 

You would think that they would be more open to this as it’s undermines the referee less due to leaving them with the final decision. Guessing they were anticipating a backlash from fans/media over the delays if they used it regularly.

[AsTallAsLions]

I had always been in favour of technology being introduced to help refs and get better decisions.
But the way they have decided to deploy this has been a disaster.
They should stop it and go away and experiment until they get it right.
Being able to celebrate a goal is one of the major reasons to attend a game for many but that enjoyment has been taken away.

Very much with you on this, CL. I was staunchly in favour of video technology coming in and even up to the start of this season. But seeing what the Premier League has done with it... no. Nothing at all would be better than this piecemeal 'solution' being offered now, it's being used in all the wrong ways and isn't at all being implemented the way it should i.e. to support and correct the referee's decisions.

[paul_e]

I had always been in favour of technology being introduced to help refs and get better decisions.
But the way they have decided to deploy this has been a disaster.
They should stop it and go away and experiment until they get it right.
Being able to celebrate a goal is one of the major reasons to attend a game for many but that enjoyment has been taken away.

I'd agree with this, the problem with VAR isn't about it getting decisions right or wrong, it's about the decisions that they're using it for and the choices available to the VAR official. It feels like the officials want it to fail right now.

[London Villan]

Also how far back do you make the decision? One pass, two passes, five?

[Luke8]

Which decisions you implement it for was always going to be one of the problems involved with bringing technology like VAR into football, given it doesn’t have the natural breaks like say cricket or tennis.

Smith mentioned about the two decisions before the first Burnley goal (throw in and free kick) being incorrect. Now, I personally would want every decision like that subject to technological review (and Smith wasn’t advocating it) but it is frustrating that, as I understand it, at the moment an offside twenty seconds before a goal would be looked at (to the finest margin) yet a incorrect throw in/corner/free kick decision ten or less before wouldn’t be subject to review.

[AsTallAsLions]

Which decisions you implement it for was always going to be one of the problems involved with bringing technology like VAR into football, given it doesn’t have the natural breaks like say cricket or tennis.

Smith mentioned about the two decisions before the first Burnley goal (throw in and free kick) being incorrect. Now, I personally would want every decision like that subject to technological review (and Smith wasn’t advocating it) but it is frustrating that, as I understand it, at the moment an offside twenty seconds before a goal would be looked at (to the finest margin) yet a incorrect throw in/corner/free kick decision ten or less before wouldn’t be subject to review.

It just doesn't make any sense does it.

For me - and I'm not saying it's the best thing for the game - either you check everything or you check nothing.

I don't really fully grasp why it's not possible for a team of 3 (it's 3, right?) video analysts sitting in an off-site room with access to all possible camera angles and watching from different perspectives can't advise the referee in real-time that he's missed something. Whether the something is a foul throw or an offiside, someone being too close to a free-kick (or a wall), a dangerous foul, an off-the-ball-incident, etc. etc. shouldn't really make any bloody difference should it?

If there's been an infringement that the ref has missed but the video analysts have seen, it's a bit mental to then be telling them what they can and can't advise on, is it not?

It's all or nothing for me, you either let the ref get on with his job in full knowledge that some of these guys are just shite and should never be allowed near a football pitch - but you make your peace with that - or else we should be advocating that everything gets looked at in real-time and called back as soon as there is a stop in play if there's been an infringement.

This half-arsed approach is just resulting in a bigger mess than before as it's highlighting in stark relief every incorrect decision that gets made which can't be overruled by VAR for one or another ridiculous reason, which effectively makes the technology a very expensive waste of everybody's time.