Dermot Gallagher

[Yellarbellyblade]

I genuinely don’t think there’s much of a place for them now VAR is in place, certainly they aren’t needed for any big decisions anymore. Maybe for things such as whether the ball is in or out of play to stop really minor things going to VAR but other than that I think we will eventually see games without them.

That’s exactly what they have become “ins and outs” like in Sunday league

 

[PokerBlade]

The issue is that the match officials had ample opportunity to review the incident. VAR initially the Linesman & the referee (who could have viewed the pitch side monitor) etc ; etc. The problem is spineless officials blaming technology when common sense should have prevented it.

It's possible that this is more a failure of the system than the officials on the day. If the ref and linesman trust the tech more than themselves, and there's no failsafe should things go wrong, then I can forgive them. The VAR team is harder but then it doesn't seem anyone understands when and where they're supposed to get involved. Not making excuses for this happening, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was another instance of the PL/FA instituting bad rules and practices rather than the blaming lying solely on the refs on the day.

 

[CaptainMorgans]

Hawkeye seem to be the only ones that are being open about it?

I don't think their adds up. We didn't see any images from hawkeye of the incident, the ref's watch buzzed a few minutes later for a goal...

 

[carthesis]

The problem isn't the tech.

The problem is the implementation and the way the use of tech has been bodged and fudged into the Laws.

There is no clear ruling over when VAR can and cannot be invoked as far as I can see. There is no option for the ref to ask for help, but instead is waiting like the rest of us for VAR to chirp up and let them know it is subject to a VAR review. There is seemingly no allowance in the rules for cross-checking of GDS and VAR decisions. There are no protocols for the referee to stop the game to allow these checks to be undertaken in extremis, purely because there is no agreement on how the game should be subsequently restarted. There is a ridiculous ruling that decisions from GDS should be instantaneous / within 5 seconds or whatever so as to not disrupt play, but that VAR decisions have no time limit and are limited until the next phase of play begins.

The entire thing is a total fucking mish-mash of bad ideas, hidebound thinking and refusal to change in the face of overwhelming evidence.

But the issue is the laws/rules/implementation, not the tech.

 

[Harrisblade]

One of his excuses literally was, it was a unique situation and that has meant they didn’t get involved.

Surely VAR is there to clear up any unique situation. I cannot believe these new technologies have been implemented without some kind of back up. If anyone implements any kind of automation in any job in the world without having a back up, whether that be manual or otherwise, they get the sack, end of. This constant patting officials on the head makes me sick.

Yes they make mistakes we all understand that. They only people who don’t understand is the FA and the people in charge of the officials. It’s a disgrace

Give him a break!
The question of whether a goal has been scored or not is surely one which no-one involved in football has ever encountered before.

 

[Sean Thornton]

Hawkeye seem to be the only ones that are being open about it?

all they have thought do is produce the evidence

 

[carthesis]

I don't think their adds up. We didn't see any images from hawkeye of the incident, the ref's watch buzzed a few minutes later for a goal...

You won't see Hawkeye images. The little overhead thing they put up showing if the ball is over the line or not isn't a camera image - t's a computer-generated graphic that plots the path of the ball. If the cameras are even briefly blocked at just the wrong moment such that the computer loses track of the flight of the ball without interpolating it, then there can't be that graphic generated without the computer taking it's best guess.

As much as this is a hard one to take, and it's shit, and we were robbed, and everything else, I don't think anyone wants goals and games being decided on the basis of the computer doing what the ref used to do - effectively shrugging it's shoulders and saying "Fucked if i know. It looked in to me..."

 

[Chabuddy G]

Dermot Gallagher is a slap head robot twat.

 

[Blade for Sale]

Can anybody explain to me the role of a linesman?

That’s a genuine question as they seem to wait for the referee to make decisions and act on that, rather than them letting a ref know there’s an offside or a foul or in this case the ball is over the line.

I’ve noticed this at Bramall Lane many times, not just last night. So what’s the point of them?

Also Dermot Gallagher is a plank.

I've mentioned this before.

Their only legitimate role now is to signal fouls missed by the ref. Logically there is no need for them at all to carry out their traditional main role of signalling offsides.

Every goal is checked so all they do by signalling offside is, at best, to anticipate a decision that will be given anyway, and this is outweight by, at worst, bringing play to a halt for an incorrect offside decision and robbing the attacking side a goalscoring opportunity. OR, more rarely but as happened to us v Newcastle, raise the flag and cause confusion, only to be immediately overruled by the ref.

Their role needs a drastic rethink.

 

[CaptainMorgans]

This is the best article I've seen on it. Can't share a link as it's behind a pay wall.

 

[S20BLADESMAD]

So release the photographic images to prove that, and also offer an explanation if it was camera occlusion why the referee stated he got a goal message from the equipment at half time. Bollocks to cover up is what all that really is.

I completely agree, there something dodgy going on. My point was, the commentator after half time said it is now turned on. Hawkeye statment after the game says it was turned on, but cameras were occluded. something doesnt add up. normally within 30 seconds you get the Hawkeye picture showing goal/no goal? where are they? As you said, show us the images that the 7 cameras had proving they couldn't see!

 

[Sharrow Snuff Mill]

The numpty at Stockley Park ( Paul Tierney ? ) needs binning off.

Video Assistant Referee ! A qualified referee there to use video to assist the match referee !

There is not a single acceptable excuse for his failure to react and intervene !

 

[S20BLADESMAD]

They should be able to prove that quite comfortably then.

Unless there's some kind of cover up, yes they should. Don't want to be someone who says people / FA are out to get us, but something dodgy has happened. There's conflicting information flying about regarding what happened.
If we are to believe the Hawkeye statement that the cameras were occluded, show us the pictures, clears it up. If not, why not?

 

[carthesis]

So it seems a failure of the protocols is far more to blame.

From what Hackett says, Oliver could have used a pitchside monitor, but chose not to because he had confidence in Hawkeye. Ditto VAR, who could have reviewed it, but chose not to because they had confidence in Hawkeye.

I'm not sure how we remove that reliance on Hawkeye from the minds of officials without a challenge system being implemented so that if captains are convinced they can compel the ref to review, rather than the ref being able to wave it away.

 

[Addison]

Said it many times before until Mike Riley is removed from his position then we will continue to get fck ups like this. Within minutes of the game being finished they issued a convoluted statement that the ref and his team including VAR couldn't make a decision because the watches didn't beep. In other words pass all the blame onto Hawkeye who stepped up and took one for the team deflecting any criticism of how Riley has manipulated VAR to ensure decision making on the part of ref and his team on the pitch is virtually eradicated.

I disagreed with 95% of what Gallagher said this morning but the 5% where he said something needed to be put in place to make sure this never happened again was relevant. Within minutes the PGMOL had issued a statement that there was no intention to change anything as a result of last nights ghost goal. Riley again covering his arse.

The Blades are helping rewrite the rules of VAR as we continue to lose points and get a raw deal. Spuds away and we discover that a second phase doesn't start when an opposition player clears the ball from his own area enabling the game to go back 5 minutes to find a toenail offside. We still haven't got a definitive second phase explanation.

Fast forward to Barcodes at Home with Mr Incompetent Attwell and we learn that Linos are irrelevant in the minds of the referee but not players, the crowd and media. Players should play to the VAR decision and referees are encouraged to tell the attacking player to continue with the game but forget to tell the opposition defenders and goalkeeper allowing balls to be walked into the net and goals conceded. Post match apparently little ole Sheff U should have played to the whistle that never came.

At Villa we discover to our detriment that Hawkeyes cameras are all attached to one post and can be made to malfunction by the goalkeeper putting a ball and his body in front of the camera. Didn't anyone think to put some on the cross bar?The Lino, referee and VAR all think its a goal but they are not allowed to think for themselves as technology never fails. In any event its only the Blades not Man U so no need to get concerned.

Rileys VAR has been a farce from start to finish as he never implemented UEFA's version. He must have some damming evidence on someone at the EPL or FA for him not to have been shown the door by now.

 

[PokerBlade]

This is the best article I've seen on it. Can't share a link as it's behind a pay wall.

"Any increased us of VAR would lead to further criticism of the technology, officials believe"

And this is where the governing bodies are taking utterly stupid positions. They want to use VAR on offsides even though they'd been told it wasn't accurate enough, but they don't want to use it in situations it could clearly and easily intervene because for some reason using it would lead to further criticism. If it's good enough to use, then how will using it to check things like last night make it worse?

Clear example of what I mean, we have an offside ruled out for a blurred image and a level of accuracy the cameras don't have, but equally we DON'T use it to check keepers staying on their line during penalties like went in our favour vs. Man City. The former is something the technology can't even do yet, but we do it anyway, and the latter is something it could easily and accurately determine far better than match officials but we've decided it won't be used for that at all. And the lesson the officials are apparently learning is "we should use it sparingly, but still utterly arbitrarily" rather than figuring out a way to implement it in something approaching a sensible and objective manner.

 

[carthesis]

I disagreed with 95% of what Gallagher said this morning but the 5% where he said something needed to be put in place to make sure this never happened again was relevant. Within minutes the PGMOL had issued a statement that there was no intention to change anything as a result of last nights ghost goal. Riley again covering his arse.
...
Rileys VAR has been a farce from start to finish as he never implemented UEFA's version. He must have some damming evidence on someone at the EPL or FA for him not to have been shown the door by now.

I think there are some (minor) issues elsewhere in your post that don't really matter in the grand scheme, but this is spot on.

To come out and say "Yes, there was a fuck up, but even though we now know there is a fuck-up, we won't consider changing anything ever." is...i don't even have words.

 

[relish]

Hawkeye are lying. I hope the club demands an inquiry.

I don't know any more than anyone else about what happened, but I would be surprised if Hawkeye were lying in their statement. It doesn't seem to be in their interests to lie this way.

If they had said "the system wasn't switched on", "the referee's buzzer failed", or something similar, it would be a major F up and embarrassing in the short term, but wouldn't cast doubt on the overall suitability of their system as a whole. That would be the way to lie.

The explanation they actually gave - that the cameras were 'occluded' so couldn't award the goal - suggests that their system is not that good, and might even endanger their contract with the PL in future. Hawkeye's camera-based system was selected over alternative technologies (e.g. chip in the ball). But if it can't work reliably when there are players and goalposts in the way (pretty much the main thing it is needed for!), then why not go with chip in ball next time the contract comes up for renewal? Definitely not in Hawkeye's interests to come out with this explanation.

Hawk-Eye awarded five-year contract for Premier League goal-line technology | Goal.com

British-based company get the nod after re-negotiating the terms of its original £10 million offer

www.goal.com

 

[HVR]

Sky News understands an announcement has been issued: "Due to the unique circumstances, whereby VAR did not get involved, it was decided that VAR should not get involved - therefore because of this, VAR did not get involved."
Case closed.

 

[Yoonited]

The man is completely delusional and a total disgrace. Backing up the VAR official even though he can see it with his eyes. His excuse being they all trust the technology so they can’t be blamed for not doing anything.

Nothing will change while idiots like him are so complicit in this blind delusion that officials and VAR are completely correct 100% of the time. They just won’t admit they’ve got it wrong, football is going backwards. They won’t admit there’s anything wrong with the technology and they won’t admit they have no idea how to use it.

Technology makes them blameless. How convenient.

 

[Ainsley Harriott]

The man is completely delusional and a total disgrace. Backing up the VAR official even though he can see it with his eyes. His excuse being they all trust the technology so they can’t be blamed for not doing anything.

Nothing will change while idiots like him are so complicit in this blind delusion that officials and VAR are completely correct 100% of the time. They just won’t admit they’ve got it wrong, football is going backwards. They won’t admit there’s anything wrong with the technology and they won’t admit they have no idea how to use it.

All he ever does, and has done, is back the refs and technology. He'd be a bit of a hypocrite if he didn't.

 

[Ainsley Harriott]

I'm glad that someone actually raised the point about 'occluded cameras'. In the Mark Clattenburg piece in the mail:

As for HawkEye, I find the Premier League explanation bizarre. They say the cameras were 'occluded by the goalkeeper, defender and goalpost'. But they weren't, we could clearly see the ball.

When HawkEye was first introduced we, as referees, were told it was fool-proof and that is saw through everything. We had concerns, for example, if the ball was buried beneath a scrum of players. So this explanation just does not add up, it should have detected the ball's position.

It's one thing to be screwed over, but then to come out and blatantly lie about how and why it happened is a piss take.

Hawkeye, by its own admission, can remove players from view.

So the fact they say the view was blocked is complete bollocks.

 

[Ainsley Harriott]

Sky Sports News has been told a 3D animation graphic of the incident was not provided because the system requires multiple camera angles to detect the ball in order to triangulate a millimetre accurate position.
-
7 cameras is 'multiple camera angles'. They're just making things worse for themselves.

 

[GodricBlade]

It’s pretty simple all this.
When it’s switched on, Hawkeye’s reliable as long as there’s not much in the way & camera’s have a good view.
That way it can give ‘GOAL’ or ‘NO GOAL’ decisions we’re all OK with.

The problem is that Hawkeye, the officials & the Premier League all believe the tech is infallible. And we all know technology never lets anyone down ever, don’t we boys & girls......

So why not have a fail-safe 3rd decision available that covers everything. If the system can’t make a GOAL or NO GOAL decision, send a CHECK signal so it goes to VAR.

Now, admittedly, I thought that’s what the VAR bloke should have done himself last night but he relied on the tech too! D’OH!

Result - no justice all round, ref’s union stick together, stuff gets swept under carpet.

Fuckers.

 

[carthesis]

Hawkeye, by its own admission, can remove players from view.

So the fact they say the view was blocked is complete bollocks.

Sky Sports News has been told a 3D animation graphic of the incident was not provided because the system requires multiple camera angles to detect the ball in order to triangulate a millimetre accurate position.
-
7 cameras is 'multiple camera angles'. They're just making things worse for themselves.

Not how the tech works. "Removing players from view" is a gross simplification of the system for a press release, and because it sounds clever. the cameras don't use x-rays or anything like that, because anything that can ACTUALLY see through players would:
a) be able to see through the ball as well, so would be useless;
b) would be constantly beaming out a stream of highly-collimated EM energy (like x-rays, or gamma rays for example) which would irradiate someone in front of them
c) would require a receiving panel detector of some kind opposit the camera to pick the beams up, because they wouldn't be reflected by definition

So no. Hawkeye can't "see through" players. Or anything else for that matter. If they can see the ball from at least 2 cameras, at different known positions and different known heights, they can triangulate its location in 3D space. If they can only see it on one camera, they can't physically locate it in "space". Being able to "remove players from view" is a function of the photogrammetry and stereoscopy techniques they use to build the 3d model of the pitch and game, which is the basis for deciding if the ball crosses the line or not.

Don't go around taking whatever PR bullshit, written by some consultant PR bullshitter, to simplify complicated technology and mathematics for the hard-of-thinking, FA and EPL officials and semi-literate sports journos fool you into thinking they're doing something magical here.

It’s pretty simple all this.
When it’s switched on, Hawkeye’s reliable as long as there’s not much in the way & camera’s have a good view.
That way it can give ‘GOAL’ or ‘NO GOAL’ decisions we’re all OK with.

The problem is that Hawkeye, the officials & the Premier League all believe the tech is infallible. And we all know technology never lets anyone down ever, don’t we boys & girls......

So why not have a fail-safe 3rd decision available that covers everything. If the system can’t make a GOAL or NO GOAL decision, send a CHECK signal so it goes to VAR.

Now, admittedly, I thought that’s what the VAR bloke should have done himself last night but he relied on the tech too! D’OH!

Result - no justice all round, ref’s union stick together, stuff gets swept under carpet.

Fuckers.

This is the best, and simplest, suggestion i've seen yet.

 

[Yellarbellyblade]

Sky News understands an announcement has been issued: "Due to the unique circumstances, whereby VAR did not get involved, it was decided that VAR should not get involved - therefore because of this, VAR did not get involved."
Case closed.

Did Boris write that?

 

[GodricBlade]

Not how the tech works. "Removing players from view" is a gross simplification of the system for a press release, and because it sounds clever. the cameras don't use x-rays or anything like that, because anything that can ACTUALLY see through players would:
a) be able to see through the ball as well, so would be useless;
b) would be constantly beaming out a stream of highly-collimated EM energy (like x-rays, or gamma rays for example) which would irradiate someone in front of them
c) would require a receiving panel detector of some kind opposit the camera to pick the beams up, because they wouldn't be reflected by definition

So no. Hawkeye can't "see through" players. Or anything else for that matter. If they can see the ball from at least 2 cameras, at different known positions and different known heights, they can triangulate its location in 3D space. If they can only see it on one camera, they can't physically locate it in "space". Being able to "remove players from view" is a function of the photogrammetry and stereoscopy techniques they use to build the 3d model of the pitch and game, which is the basis for deciding if the ball crosses the line or not.

Don't go around taking whatever PR bullshit, written by some consultant PR bullshitter, to simplify complicated technology and mathematics for the hard-of-thinking, FA and EPL officials and semi-literate sports journos fool you into thinking they're doing something magical here.

This is the best, and simplest, suggestion i've seen yet.

Oooh - thank you very much.

 

[TJ blade]

Said it many times before until Mike Riley is removed from his position then we will continue to get fck ups like this. Within minutes of the game being finished they issued a convoluted statement that the ref and his team including VAR couldn't make a decision because the watches didn't beep. In other words pass all the blame onto Hawkeye who stepped up and took one for the team deflecting any criticism of how Riley has manipulated VAR to ensure decision making on the part of ref and his team on the pitch is virtually eradicated.

I disagreed with 95% of what Gallagher said this morning but the 5% where he said something needed to be put in place to make sure this never happened again was relevant. Within minutes the PGMOL had issued a statement that there was no intention to change anything as a result of last nights ghost goal. Riley again covering his arse.

The Blades are helping rewrite the rules of VAR as we continue to lose points and get a raw deal. Spuds away and we discover that a second phase doesn't start when an opposition player clears the ball from his own area enabling the game to go back 5 minutes to find a toenail offside. We still haven't got a definitive second phase explanation.

Fast forward to Barcodes at Home with Mr Incompetent Attwell and we learn that Linos are irrelevant in the minds of the referee but not players, the crowd and media. Players should play to the VAR decision and referees are encouraged to tell the attacking player to continue with the game but forget to tell the opposition defenders and goalkeeper allowing balls to be walked into the net and goals conceded. Post match apparently little ole Sheff U should have played to the whistle that never came.

At Villa we discover to our detriment that Hawkeyes cameras are all attached to one post and can be made to malfunction by the goalkeeper putting a ball and his body in front of the camera. Didn't anyone think to put some on the cross bar?The Lino, referee and VAR all think its a goal but they are not allowed to think for themselves as technology never fails. In any event its only the Blades not Man U so no need to get concerned.

Rileys VAR has been a farce from start to finish as he never implemented UEFA's version. He must have some damming evidence on someone at the EPL or FA for him not to have been shown the door by now.

Agree. Riley should have been removed from his post first thing this morning, he's been a thorn in our side for quite a while that bastard!!

 

[carthesis]

Oooh - thank you very much.

You're welcome. It's an elegant solution, albeit tricky to implement in the actual details, but still.

I've just said on another thread that i think the issue is that the default answer to the yes-or-no question that GDS is asked is "no.". Therefore in this case, silence is consent! Its like saying "Did it go in, yes or no, and if you stay quiet, i'm going to assume its a no." But effectively, having Hawkeye chuck up a "CHECK" signal every time it loses track of the ball would cover most of these allegedly very rare situations where it doesn't know.

Its like the GDS equivalent of the "guilty, not guilty, not proven" verdict options in Scotland...

 

[Sean Thornton]

Stockley Park staff this morning waiting to see ( pun intended) what lies Mike Riley has made up about last nights incident....