Why no VAR for Southampton goal??

[Cerberus Blade]

There are 4 officials watching the game live at every match. The ref, two linespeople (being pc here) and a fourth official, who's main job is to take abuse from the manager's in the technical area obviously.

That's 4 pairs of eyes, watching the game from different angles, or 8 eyeballs in total, assuming they've got 2 eyes each. This is deemed insufficient. So we've now got some more pairs of eyes, watching it on a screen in an office near Heathrow. I'm not sure how many eyeballs that includes, but there's at least 2 of them for sure, I think!

This still seems insufficient. Because despite the "technology" they are still getting it wrong. There was a day when we went to the match accepting that the man in the middle can't possibly see everything and call every decision right. It was annoying and frustrating when they missed something, but as the referee's themselves would say, "I can only give it if I can see it". And they can't see everything - that's fair enough. Or it used to be...

The amount of money at stake in the game now, particularly in the Prem, means that it's no longer good enough to accept that the referee is a human being and whilst he'll get the majority of decisions right, there are some he will miss. Oh no. Not when there's millions of pounds riding on it. We have to try and make it perfect! So, we introduce "VAR" - which stands for Vacuous Arbitary Reasoning. The problem is, VAR is still reliant on human beings to interpret it. So we are no better off in terms of eliminating human error. All that we've done is transfer the responsibility from the human beings at the game to some anonymous person or persons in a studio miles away from the action. And they are supposedly there to "assist" the referee, but they're not assisting him, they're telling him what to do!

There is another buggeration factor in all this though...

The rule book.

I'm afraid the rule book needs re-writing in places, so that we don't have to interpret whether an armpit or a toenail was offside. Football rules were never intended to be applied in millimetres! Similarly with the handball rule...it shouldn't be difficult to spell that out a bit more clearly so it's obvious what constitutes an offence and what doesn't. This particular one has been causing controversy for years, long before VAR was even thought of.

There are those who say, "VAR will come good eventually". These are the same Saintish types who predict crap players will come good eventually. There are those who thing VAR is a load of crap and should be confined to the dustbin for ever. I think neither of these is true. But I do think, before you introduce a system like VAR into a sport you have to beta test it first and make sure it does what its supposed to do. You don't just launch it and then find out it's not working and carry on with it. Problem is, that's exactly what we've done, and if we just stop using it now then that potentially could be seen as advantaging or disadvantaging some teams over others.

So, for me, they need to make changes to the laws/rules of the game first. Make it so that offside means being sufficiently ahead of the defending player that it constitutes a clear advantage in play. Make it so that handball means contact with the ball with a part of the hand or arm that results in an advantageous passage of play to the team who hand-balled it (whether deliberate or accidental). Fixing these two rules would make life easier for the short-sighted gimps in Stockley Park - then they can spend the summer improving their "technology" and knowledge of the rules of the game.

 

[Sothall_Blade]

VAR is often getting the blame for ridiculous rule changes brought in at the same time.

No way should the Southampton goal be disallowed because it wasn’t deliberate handball.

No way should Lundstram be offside because it was too marginal to call and the attacking team should get the benefit of the doubt.

Stop looking for reasons to disallow goals and just get back to making common sense decisions based on laws that were perfectly good enough for decades previously.

I agreed with VAR being brought in to prevent situations like Maradona punching the ball into the net and I still do. That’s what it should be used for. “Clear and obvious” errors not seen by the officials.

No need for long delays or pitch-side monitors if it’s “clear and obvious” only.
If they can’t decide before the game is due to restart, it’s not obvious enough and they should go with the original decision.

 

[Woodwardfan]

There are 4 officials watching the game live at every match. The ref, two linespeople (being pc here) and a fourth official, who's main job is to take abuse from the manager's in the technical area obviously.

That's 4 pairs of eyes, watching the game from different angles, or 8 eyeballs in total, assuming they've got 2 eyes each. This is deemed insufficient. So we've now got some more pairs of eyes, watching it on a screen in an office near Heathrow. I'm not sure how many eyeballs that includes, but there's at least 2 of them for sure, I think!

This still seems insufficient. Because despite the "technology" they are still getting it wrong. There was a day when we went to the match accepting that the man in the middle can't possibly see everything and call every decision right. It was annoying and frustrating when they missed something, but as the referee's themselves would say, "I can only give it if I can see it". And they can't see everything - that's fair enough. Or it used to be...

The amount of money at stake in the game now, particularly in the Prem, means that it's no longer good enough to accept that the referee is a human being and whilst he'll get the majority of decisions right, there are some he will miss. Oh no. Not when there's millions of pounds riding on it. We have to try and make it perfect! So, we introduce "VAR" - which stands for Vacuous Arbitary Reasoning. The problem is, VAR is still reliant on human beings to interpret it. So we are no better off in terms of eliminating human error. All that we've done is transfer the responsibility from the human beings at the game to some anonymous person or persons in a studio miles away from the action. And they are supposedly there to "assist" the referee, but they're not assisting him, they're telling him what to do!

There is another buggeration factor in all this though...

The rule book.

I'm afraid the rule book needs re-writing in places, so that we don't have to interpret whether an armpit or a toenail was offside. Football rules were never intended to be applied in millimetres! Similarly with the handball rule...it shouldn't be difficult to spell that out a bit more clearly so it's obvious what constitutes an offence and what doesn't. This particular one has been causing controversy for years, long before VAR was even thought of.

There are those who say, "VAR will come good eventually". These are the same Saintish types who predict crap players will come good eventually. There are those who thing VAR is a load of crap and should be confined to the dustbin for ever. I think neither of these is true. But I do think, before you introduce a system like VAR into a sport you have to beta test it first and make sure it does what its supposed to do. You don't just launch it and then find out it's not working and carry on with it. Problem is, that's exactly what we've done, and if we just stop using it now then that potentially could be seen as advantaging or disadvantaging some teams over others.

So, for me, they need to make changes to the laws/rules of the game first. Make it so that offside means being sufficiently ahead of the defending player that it constitutes a clear advantage in play. Make it so that handball means contact with the ball with a part of the hand or arm that results in an advantageous passage of play to the team who hand-balled it (whether deliberate or accidental). Fixing these two rules would make life easier for the short-sighted gimps in Stockley Park - then they can spend the summer improving their "technology" and knowledge of the rules of the game.

Agree the rules require refinement , as you say the offside rule and the handball rule essentially. I'd add goalkeeper rule at penalties. The fact that these areas are under focus now we have VAR is testimony that the technology helps improvement. Infringement entering the area at pens is already almost sorted and will be as good as eradicated. Holding at corners and shirt-pulling will be next.

As for 4 officials not being enough to ensure fair and proper interpretation of the rules, again VAR proves they are not. VAR panels have been protective of their colleagues on the field but even so there have been so many corrections made already - and each of those would have been an injustice without VAR.

One of my hobby horses is the 4th Official who to my mind was superfluous and a poor use of resources even before VAR. 'Quality' and experienced officials are used for little purpose at every game. A steward could keep the managers apart and if the managers have nobody to 'work on' then all well and good.

VAR panel officials are from the 'elite' list of referees. 10 of the 15 gained experience in the role at the World Cup. At least two sometimes three are there every game. They see incidents from various camera angles and have time to replay as they see fit. Obviously time is of the essence but surely justice of the decision is more important.

VAR covers 4 types of decision - offsides, goals and violations in the bulid-up, penalties, red cards and mistaken identity.

I'm a big fan of VAR in sport. There are already signs this radical system is settling down in the Premier League and justice will be all the better for it.

I can still see Mike Dean standing 20 yards away from Kyle Walker at Wembley with that arrogant pose and exaggerated wave of the arms dismissing the penalty against Burnley. His decision would have been overturned with VAR and justice would have been done within less than a minute, it was that 'clear and obvious'.
On the other hand the one on Howard in the first half would have been upheld as a non-penalty and I can well understand that, even though it was a pen in my view.

Next season at this time of year we will wonder what all the fuss was about.

 

[Woodwardfan]

In due course I would support 'retrospective VAR' to stamp out cheating and blatant examples of dissent with retrospective fines and bans.

One thing at a time though.

 

[steve26272]

I agree with the concept of VAR. people seem to quickly have forgotten the errors made.
The 2 biggest travesty’s that I have ever seen are hand balls that led to vital goals. Maradona and Thierry Henry - both would have been ruled out (and hopefully carded) changing the outcome of massive games.

it’s not perfect, but we have to accept it’s going to have teethingtroubles, which hopefully will be ironed out

if we’re still having this conversation in 2 years then it a cluster fuck.

 

[PokerBlade]

Personally I think VAR should be used for clear and obvious. Sky only spotted it some time after with one of their multiple cameras. We can't have two or three minute delays while they debate every goal.

Put a sensible time limit on it. The problem with "clear and obvious" is that it isn't well defined. We could argue all day about whether something is "clear and obvious" enough. If the ref on the pitch missed it then that's fine, that's what VAR is for. If VAR spots an offence then it should award whatever the rules say is appropriate. If we're worried about time then just put a limit on how long VAR has to make a decision.

Really though, I think we should just accept that even with the benefit of multiple angles and hours of squabbling that most of the contentious incidents to come out of VAR are hard to call. I'd rather the game flowed than add an extra layer of argument. Scrap VAR and revisit it if and when technology improves.

 

[Woodwardfan]

Put a sensible time limit on it. The problem with "clear and obvious" is that it isn't well defined. We could argue all day about whether something is "clear and obvious" enough. If the ref on the pitch missed it then that's fine, that's what VAR is for. If VAR spots an offence then it should award whatever the rules say is appropriate. If we're worried about time then just put a limit on how long VAR has to make a decision.

Really though, I think we should just accept that even with the benefit of multiple angles and hours of squabbling that most of the contentious incidents to come out of VAR are hard to call. I'd rather the game flowed than add an extra layer of argument. Scrap VAR and revisit it if and when technology improves.

Good post until you mentioned revisiting when technology improves - thers nowt wrong with it now, its the humans!!

 

[Sheffsteel]

The rule book.

I'm afraid the rule book needs re-writing in places, so that we don't have to interpret whether an armpit or a toenail was offside. Football rules were never intended to be applied in millimetres! Similarly with the handball rule...it shouldn't be difficult to spell that out a bit more clearly so it's obvious what constitutes an offence and what doesn't. This particular one has been causing controversy for years, long before VAR was even thought of.

There are those who say, "VAR will come good eventually". These are the same Saintish types who predict crap players will come good eventually. There are those who thing VAR is a load of crap and should be confined to the dustbin for ever. I think neither of these is true. But I do think, before you introduce a system like VAR into a sport you have to beta test it first and make sure it does what its supposed to do. You don't just launch it and then find out it's not working and carry on with it. Problem is, that's exactly what we've done, and if we just stop using it now then that potentially could be seen as advantaging or disadvantaging some teams over others.

So, for me, they need to make changes to the laws/rules of the game first. Make it so that offside means being sufficiently ahead of the defending player that it constitutes a clear advantage in play. Make it so that handball means contact with the ball with a part of the hand or arm that results in an advantageous passage of play to the team who hand-balled it (whether deliberate or accidental). Fixing these two rules would make life easier for the short-sighted gimps in Stockley Park - then they can spend the summer improving their "technology" and knowledge of the rules of the game.

The would still be massive problem with your idea regards “clear offside”.
What if someone is a toenail away from it being clearly on side.....that means it would still be disallowed because of a toenail.

Whatever threshold you set.
Lets say 50 millimetres.....that’s a mere 5 centimetres.....then someone could be 48 millimeters past the last defender....they would be onside
Where as in another match if they were 52 millimetres past the last defender it would be offside.

 

[Sheffsteel]

I agree with the concept of VAR. people seem to quickly have forgotten the errors made.
The 2 biggest travesty’s that I have ever seen are hand balls that led to vital goals. Maradona and Thierry Henry - both would have been ruled out (and hopefully carded) changing the outcome of massive games.

it’s not perfect, but we have to accept it’s going to have teethingtroubles, which hopefully will be ironed out

if we’re still having this conversation in 2 years then it a cluster fuck.

Very much agree....

VAR is far from perfect BUT it’s much better than what we had before......refs used to make terrible decisions every week.
Also there was always a bias towards the bigger clubs....but that’s really difficult to happen with VAR.

 

[PokerBlade]

Good post until you mentioned revisiting when technology improves - thers nowt wrong with it now, its the humans!!

No, the offside stuff is very limited by things like framerate. That could be helped by improving the cameras used, and we could also very easily implement a margin of error that says offsides are called within +/- however many cm. It's quite possible that in the future you're going to have the ability to make much better calls than we do now.

My thing is still about the flow of the game and the appeal of it as a spectator sport. I'm willing to sacrifice accuracy of decisions in favour of them being instant. I want to celebrate when the ball hits the net. Once upon a time, FIFA had a policy about goal-line technology that said they'd introduce it as soon as it became 100% accurate and instant. And when the technology arrived they did just that. I don't know why this policy to technology in football was abandoned.

 

[Cerberus Blade]

The would still be massive problem with your idea regards “clear offside”.
What if someone is a toenail away from it being clearly on side.....that means it would still be disallowed because of a toenail.

Whatever threshold you set.
Lets say 50 millimetres.....that’s a mere 5 centimetres.....then someone could be 48 millimeters past the last defender....they would be onside
Where as in another match if they were 52 millimetres past the last defender it would be offside.

you really didn’t understand my post at all did you?

 

[Cerberus Blade]

VAR is often getting the blame for ridiculous rule changes brought in at the same time.

No way should the Southampton goal be disallowed because it wasn’t deliberate handball.

No way should Lundstram be offside because it was too marginal to call and the attacking team should get the benefit of the doubt.

Stop looking for reasons to disallow goals and just get back to making common sense decisions based on laws that were perfectly good enough for decades previously.

I agreed with VAR being brought in to prevent situations like Maradona punching the ball into the net and I still do. That’s what it should be used for. “Clear and obvious” errors not seen by the officials.

No need for long delays or pitch-side monitors if it’s “clear and obvious” only.
If they can’t decide before the game is due to restart, it’s not obvious enough and they should go with the original decision.

Very well said mate. You have just spoken absolute common sense. And you expressed it clearly enough for anyone to understand (I think!). Except the FA obviously.

 

[Ainsley Harriott]

Why no VAR for Wolves goal? Their man was offside in the build up. No problems with the goal, onside all day. But bring it back like they did for Lunny at Spurs and that's disallowed. Baffling decision.

 

[WhiteHawk]

Why no VAR for Wolves goal?

Because it was against little old Sheffield United?

Watching it at the time I wasn't looking at Jiminez, just Doherty, who was in an offside postion but the ball wasn't played to him. Jiminez was well offside when the ball was played to him though, no idea how VAR didn't over rule it.

 

[Ainsley Harriott]

Because it was against little old Sheffield United?

Watching it at the time I wasn't looking at Jiminez, just Doherty, who was in an offside postion but the ball wasn't played to him. Jiminez was well offside when the ball was played to him though, no idea how VAR didn't over rule it.

Certainly enough to suggest it's geared towards the big clubs. VAR, for me, deliberately looked for a reason to disallow our goal at Spurs. Today, despite the glaring similarity, not even a check.

 

[WhiteHawk]

VAR, for me, deliberately looked for a reason to disallow our goal at Spurs.

Completely agree.

 

[Woodwardfan]

VAR officials have a better weekend, good conclusions and justice prevails. Well done /var.

 

[Silent Blade]

Why no VAR for Wolves goal? Their man was offside in the build up. No problems with the goal, onside all day. But bring it back like they did for Lunny at Spurs and that's disallowed. Baffling decision.

The offside rules were changed years ago! The player wasn't in an offside position when the pass was being played to him. Once he received the pass we move on to the next phase

 

[WhiteHawk]

The offside rules were changed years ago! The player wasn't in an offside position when the pass was being played to him. Once he received the pass we move on to the next phase

Jiminez looked offside when the ball was played to him before he then passed it to Doherty. They didn't show it in the highlights on MOTD and the Sky Sports app won't let me take a screenshot of the video.

 

[WhiteHawk]

 

[wizadry]

The offside rules were changed years ago! The player wasn't in an offside position when the pass was being played to him. Once he received the pass we move on to the next phase

He was surely offside as our players had to act as though he was in a participant in a Wolves attack?

If he wasn’t there then we’d have been ok defensively?

 

[Silent Blade]

Jiminez looked offside when the ball was played to him before he then passed it to Doherty. They didn't show it in the highlights on MOTD and the Sky Sports app won't let me take a screenshot of the video.

The ball was played towards Traore who wasnt in an offside position, Stevens then diverted the ball to Jiminez

 

[Silent Blade]

He was surely offside as our players had to act as though he was in a participant in a Wolves attack?

If he wasn’t there then we’d have been ok defensively?

Jiminez was 10 yards away from Traore (not in an offside position) who was supposed to receive the pass before Stevens cut the pass off and diverted it to Jiminez.

 

[wizadry]

Jiminez was 10 yards away from Traore (not in an offside position) who was supposed to receive the pass before Stevens cut the pass off and diverted it to Jiminez.

The ball went forward and got to Jiminez, surely he is active in the initial forward pass?

 

[Silent Blade]

The ball went forward and got to Jiminez, surely he is active in the initial forward pass?

It wasnt going to Jiminez. Even when Stevens touched the ball Jiminez was in an onside position. If it was a Wolves player who did exactly the same as Stevens did then it is the next phase. It would have been offside 15 years ago

 

[Bergen Blade]

Jiminez looked offside when the ball was played to him before he then passed it to Doherty. They didn't show it in the highlights on MOTD and the Sky Sports app won't let me take a screenshot of the video.

Posted this elsewhere, a screenshot with some lines drawn in:



It is so close that we shouldn't be complaining at that if we're also complaining at the Lundstram situation. I think both goals should have stood.

 

[wizadry]

It wasnt going to Jiminez. Even when Stevens touched the ball Jiminez was in an onside position. If it was a Wolves player who did exactly the same as Stevens did then it is the next phase. It would have been offside 15 years ago

Well no disrespect mate but I’m fucked if I know, I’m now convinced that our lass knows the offside rule better than me and she is fucking useless at football rules. That makes me a reyt daft twat of the highest order, what a daft and confusing game it’s becoming.

 

[wizadry]

Posted this elsewhere, a screenshot with some lines drawn in:

View attachment 65835

It is so close that we shouldn't be complaining at that if we're also complaining at the Lundstram situation. I think both goals should have stood.

The thing is, the Lundstram situation got disallowed so that’s exactly the reason we are complaining, it’s a fucking joke if you ask me Bergs.

 

[WhiteHawk]

Posted this elsewhere, a screenshot with some lines drawn in:



It is so close that we shouldn't be complaining at that if we're also complaining at the Lundstram situation. I think both goals should have stood.

I don't disagree, but McG's was disallowed for the Lundstram offside yet did they even bother looking at this one? There was certainly no mention of it on the commentary.

 

[Bergen Blade]

It wasnt going to Jiminez. Even when Stevens touched the ball Jiminez was in an onside position. If it was a Wolves player who did exactly the same as Stevens did then it is the next phase. It would have been offside 15 years ago

A thought experiment, what if the ball was played like in the photo below and all our players waving for an offside decision on their number 18 (red circle), i.e we stopped playing completely, as did their other players. But as the no 18 showed no interest in the ball the linesman didn't bother waving his flag. Could the number 18 then exploit that situation and go for the ball? The ball wasn't really going to him originally, but like Jimenez (had he been offside) he is gaining an advantage by being in an offside position.