VAR

[Mister E]

I personally think they were instructed not to use it so that some of them weren't made to look bigger c***s than they already are.  ie, Kevin Friend!

I think this is rght, Dave.

[Risso]

So, VAR was used at FA Cup games today where the home side was a Premier League team, but not anywhere else.  How can they possibly justify that?

[N'ZMAV]

LiVARpool

[Legion]

I think it has been done previously. Still wrong, though.

[baddowvillans]

A lot of whining from Leicester about Marvellous' "handball".  Has anybody seen a decent angle on it?  Ref must have had a good reason - ball going over bar - or something to disallow but I guess we would have been disappointed not to get the decision. 

Hate the idiots however that go that would have been 2-1 to us without accepting that the whole game would have been different.  We may have gone back on the front foot earlier and smashed them 5-1 - no one knows

[Somniloquism]

Attackers are 100% called on handballs due to the new rule change so there is no such thing as accidental then. However defenders still get the benefit of accidental and VAR would have called it on field decision in that case. During the world cup, it was dabbled on un-natural hand/arm position but that seems to have been dropped. If you look at it in real time after slow Mo, the ball was coming so fast that the arms were protecting face. The pace meant it was more ball to hand then vice versa.

It was one which could have gone either way but was not 100% a penalty.

[Ad@m]

I've just seen the goal Wolves had disallowed last night by VAR.

Aside of the utter idiocy of another goal being called offside by a fraction on a player moving away from goal, I don't think I even understand the offside rule anymore.  From the corner, three of the four passes are backwards - I thought you could only be offside from a forward pass?  But the only forward pass involved in the goal wasn't the reason it was disallowed.

Any ideas?

[Clampy]

The fact that the ref didn't seem to have a clue why it was disallowed either says it all and he's supposedly in charge of the game.

[Somniloquism]

I've just seen the goal Wolves had disallowed last night by VAR.

Aside of the utter idiocy of another goal being called offside by a fraction on a player moving away from goal, I don't think I even understand the offside rule anymore.  From the corner, three of the four passes are backwards - I thought you could only be offside from a forward pass?  But the only forward pass involved in the goal wasn't the reason it was disallowed.

Any ideas?

Nope, everyone assumes it is forward passes only because there is very little times that a backwards one will be offside.I might be wrong but the attacking receiving player needs to be level or behind the attacking passer still at point of pass otherwise some of these two on ones would be called back.

I've said before, I don't mind the offsides called by VAR as that is now one of the absolutes in the game rules as is. There are still too many others which is interpretation of the viewer. Blame the rules for stating offside is now decided by mm and not the technology though. However, my issue is how far back are they taking these. There has been some goals allowed as fouls in the buildup have been ignored as too soon before the play. However our one a few weeks ago, and Wolves last night was several passes before the goal, and the decision against Shrewsbury in the FA cup replay was so long before the attack scored that even the highlights team didn't go back far enough at the time.

[London Villan]

A lot of the anti-VAR sentiment would be fixed if the officials just explained what was going on - Engels today being a good example. Ref tells the stadium what has happened and then you shrug - like with offsides. It's still sh*t though.

[tomd2103]

A lot of the anti-VAR sentiment would be fixed if the officials just explained what was going on - Engels today being a good example. Ref tells the stadium what has happened and then you shrug - like with offsides. It's still sh*t though.

It just isn't being used right.  Take the Engels penalty decision as an example today.  Referee on the field doesn't give it, but says to VAR official, could you just check it for me.  VAR official watches replay and either says I agree with you or you might need another look at it.  In the latter case, Ref then goes and views it on a monitor and either sticks to his original decision or changes it. 

[ChicagoLion]

It really is a Pandora’s box. Once you start reviewing stuff it then becomes an arbitrary exercise in terms of what is and isn’t reviewed and how far back do you go before you find an infringement.
The way it has been introduced is so fucking amateurish.
They have undermined their own rule of clear and obvious error, no one understand how hand ball is being applied and the offside decisions are a joke and the science is flawed.

[OzVilla]

Its quite incredible how a system that should be reasonably fool proof has become an absolute fucking circus. The referees association should be absolutely ashamed that this has been the outcome of implementing VAR this season.

Are other countries using VAR having these issues too?

[Smithy]

Watching on the TV, it was obvious they were going to give a pen yesterday when you could see VAR going back to look at the through ball to see if he was offside - they're not doing that if they didn't think the tackle merited a pen.  Although they took a while to award it, I think they made the penalty decision (i.e. the foul bit) pretty quickly. That said, I don't agree that it meets with the "clear and obvious" criteria that Dean mentioned.

If VAR is there to overrule in cases of "clear and obvious" mistakes, then it is - by definition - required to let go mistakes that are NOT "clear and obvious".

I have no qualms about the tackle meriting a penalty. He took the man before the ball in the penalty area. What I don't like is that VAR on decisions like this is NOT supposed to be a binary yes/no like in offside.

I would be annoyed if it was us NOT getting a penalty in such cases, but that's the way the system is supposed to work.  By all means, get rid of the "clear and obvious" part of the rules and make it more like offside - at least then it's a level playing field.

Look back at the incident where Anwar got clouted after his header on the six-yard line, seconds before the defending is grabbing at his arm - is that not a penalty if we're going down the black/white route - or is it just something that got missed and we move on?  What about Engels getting punched in the face a couple of weeks ago?

[Risso]

The other thing with the shit VAR decision, was the amount of time that play went on for before the referee stopped the game.  What if we'd scored then, and then VAR announce they're checking the Spurs decision.  Is that our goal ruled out?  It's an absolute farce, they really couldn't make more of a pig's ear of it if they tried.