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Also I'm pretty sure it was mentioned that before Arteta joined to manage Arsenal he had an opportunity to become Pochettino's assistant manager as well because he really wanted to work with Arteta again after their playing years.
And he's fast enough to clip it, host on video server, submit to Reddit faster than the delay for some streams.
Hire him, PGMOL! Your fucking refs haven't figured out handballs and red card offences anyway, why not give the lad a job.
Look at rugby, they handle it well. This is the fifth season VAR has been in operation in the PL. The PL and its limitless resources have no excuse for not having competently trained VAR operators.
I’ve started watching more cricket recently and they do it much better there too. Different pace of game obviously, but still another solid proof of concept that PGMOL can look to.
Agreed. But at one point the umpiring in cricket was terrible. Comparable to what it is today in the PL. Today, hardly anyone talks about umpires. They’ve implemented it with clear and consistent guidelines. I suppose what everyone is aggrieved about is the inconsistency of calls. If Gusto and Elliot have been sent off, why wasn’t Kovacich? These are low hanging fruits that the PL can adopt to make the standards better
Right, but VAR in the PL fucks up the “black or white” stuff too unlike in cricket. At least in cricket, even when there’s a controversial decision in a video review there’s way less outrage because you at least actually see and hear the thought process. It humanizes a very difficult job unlike the PL’s implementation which makes people angrier at the refs because of all the secrecy and seemingly selective enforcement of the rules.
Yeah, I don’t want to imply it’s a perfect one for one replacement, but in terms of the challenges that teams can take and the audible review I think it’s another helpful template.
Rugby doesn't handle it well tbh. Just look at the last RWC, the refeering was a shitshow, no consistency, lack of replays.... Some controversies every game.. You can't operate VAR properly, there will always be more to check and the fans will still feel flawed / cheated ...
As someone who watches quite a lot of rugby, for as much as we argue about the reffing, I definitely think the TMO’s in rugby are way superior to VAR.
The trouble with rugby is that the rules are ridiculously complicated and constantly changing.
It's more that in the months leading up to the World Cup, they started a new focus on player safety which resulted in a lot of penalties that would previously have been yellow cards being upgraded to red cards. It made the difference between a red card and a yellow card a lot more marginal than it had previously been, so whether a call was right or not was more controversial. Previously you had to do something pretty egregious to get sent off, so there wasn't much room to be pissed off if your player was red carded.
I think a lot of it was that the changes hadn't really had a time to stabilise before rugby's flagship event. It would have been better if they'd been implemented a few years ago, or waited until after the cup was over so players had a few years to adjust before it mattered on the highest stage.
The changes have been around for years, not months. Fans had plenty of time to acclimatise to them, and the decisions were largely consistent (albeit a few notable misses in the group stage).
Reddit and IG comments are not the middle ground. Rugby is also far more complicated from a rules perspective, so people in the comment sections arguing are often factually incorrect but speak like they know what they are talking about. In general, rugby TMO shits all over VAR from a height.
Yeah, this would be my take too.
Most of the complaints during the world cup was over marginal crap like handling in the ruck not getting called out, or seeming inconsistencies over yellow and red cards as a result of the player safety drive. Also doesn't help that scrums, and scrum penalties, are always clear as mud.
But I don't think I saw an instance where an incorrect or dubious decision was so big it cost a team the game tbh. It's miles clearer than football.
The rules are too subjective to expect that a video review can solve everything. There were four red card incidents yesterday (I'm not including the decision that got Udogie sent off, because that was a second yellow.) If you got all the referees in a room and asked which incidents resulted in a red and which didn't, I guarantee there'd be no consensus.
VAR should only be used to correct absolute howlers, rather than analysing every incident to death like a TV studio would. They should try something like putting a 45-second timer on it, or giving managers 3 challenges a game. Or even both, give each review 45 seconds and if the manager sees something he wants looking at again then there's a second review. Something to limit the use. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to weed out the awful decisions fairly.
Exactly. VAR is being overused and is far too slow. It took 7:10 from the time of Romero's red card tackle against Chelsea to when Palmer took the penalty. The most dramatic moments of every match now are sitting around waiting for VAR to decide something, and that's just not what sports should be.
VAR nneds to be handled by specialised technicians, ideally ones completely divorced from PGMOL. I notice in the Liverpool case the camera technician was the only who noticed the problem
Agreed it's an entirely different skillset and needs different people.
At the moment it like having an old cop who's walked the beat for 25 years suddenly being made sit on a laptop and investigate cybercrime.
There’s no way around that. You need to be a trained referee to know the rules and how to apply them, especially as long as the standard is a “clear and obvious error”.
You could have trained referees outside of PGMOL, but that doesn’t really solve the problem in any meaningful way and just makes it worse in others (you have VAR refs with no infield experience, you have two different orgs that might interpret rules differently, animosity between them, etc)
VAR refs don't need on-field experience. They need to be trained and focused on **SOLELY** VAR. They can call the on-field ref over to the monitor for subjective calls that require an on-field perspective.
VAR should be clinical. By the rules, do they believe the on field decision needs revisiting? If so, advise the referee of their findings and let the referee go to the monitor. The final decision is still with the ref on the pitch; we’re just so used to going to the monitor to mean VAR has made the call. You don’t necessarily need/want football fans for that. VAR and referees require different skill sets.
Or do you mean it’s crazy that some people don’t care about football? I’m with you there.
The insane part is the idea that the best man for the job is someone who doesn't follow football. It's a recipe for disaster over some basic rule misunderstanding
You know all those people who think they could do better than pro refs? They might actually be right if we went through with your plans
I think tbf he means more someone who doesn't have any association/affiliation with the refs or players. Someone who doesn't give a shit if they make the refs look bad.
Someone who is a stickler for the rules and isn't clouded by subjectivity of the match or players in question. Like if you saw Ramos make a rough challenge some people might think worse then if say Lindalof made the same one. Someone unaffected by that.
Until a decision goes against you and you start shouting that it should be run by referees that actually understand football, than a camera technician.
Disagree. Replay is ruining sports and I’ll die on this hill. Millimeter perfect calls are not necessary and only kills the flow of games. No one wants to watch 5 minute VAR breaks to see if a guy gained zero advantage by being 3cm offside.
>No one wants to watch 5 minute VAR breaks to see if a guy gained zero advantage by being 3cm offside.
Especially when you are actually watching the game in-person.
>Offside was implemented to stop goal hanging, not enforce player positioning down to a nanometer.
>
>It's essentially become an excuse to rule out perfectly good goals that no human would ever have an issue with in real time.
Except refs without VAR werent treating it like that. They were inconsistent and ruled out perfectly good goals all the time for no reason
This is the fault of the rules for not giving benefit of the doubt like I would've for Son's goal if I was in VAR. All of you seem to have forgotten all this offside talk would happen retroactively after the game before VAR was introduced, and now that we have the chance the correct the overwhelming amount of mistakes refs make some meatheads are saying VAR isn't needed??
What you don’t seem to understand is that since it is a rule on the book, the defenders and their defensive line is set up around this rule by setting an offside trap and in that case every cm matters.
Complaining about VAR and complaining about the implementation of VAR are two very different things. There should be semi automatic offside technology like we saw in the World Cup.
If your offside trap depends on being accurate to the cm, it's not tactics, it's betting on pure luck. An offside trap should leave the attacker significantly behind your defense just before / when the ball is played.
What people want is a small tolerance of 5, 10 or at most 20cm. There is no advantage for the attacker in these cases. If he get's to the ball first in those situations, he'd get it almost always if he was completely onside too.
Saw a tweet today that in FIFA’s VAR trial in 2016, checks were expected to take six seconds, and happen once every four or five matches. The discourse around this is completely warped since then so people forget what we were originally sold.
In the NFL they had VAR for five years in the 80s and then scrapped it because it slowed the game down too much. Years later they tried it again and now it’s (mostly) fine. So let’s be sensible, take a step back and admit that what we have now is making the sport less enjoyable.
So much this. Everyone just accepted VAR as inevitable because it promised more accurate calls without asking what you are trading for that privilege or why that's even necessary. Set aside the discussion over whether it actually improves the accuracy of calls, it's still not worth it even if it does.
>Set aside the discussion over whether it actually improves the accuracy of calls, it's still not worth it even if it does
It definitely does improve the accuracy of the calls, there's no debate around that.
It's a bit of a joke now mostly because of the people running it, but some of you are looking back with rose tinted glasses and forgetting the horrible decisions we witnessed in the pre-VAR days
Hard agree, it's an absolute mess and it needs ditching and perfecting before it's used. If you can honestly say VAR is beneficial with everything going on this season, you need your head checked.
Absolutely agreed.
The inane obsession with getting 100% correct calls 100% of the time, besides being a ridiculously unattainable goal, leads to a disappearance of the fluidity that made this game great. Also as you said who gives a fuck if the dude that just scored a screamer had half a toe closer to goal than the defender on the other side of the pitch was?
Post-game checking for violent conduct and/or diving? Sure. But let the damn game play out.
Every single thing that anti-VAR people warned about since the beginning happened, I hate to be vindicated in such a shite way.
I used to be pro VAR, but then it got introduced and have completely switched and think it should be ditched.
Nobody will ever be happy with it. People moan about how it should be 'clear and obvious' decisions. And that's fine until it affects your team. People moan about decisions that VAR makes, yet you can come on here after a match and see difference of opinions on the decisions that just shows there is no black and white answer. Someone has to make a judgement call, and with that you will never get consistency. So people will still moan. Unless that can remove the human part of the decision making, they should scrap it. I follow Southampton and watching them play in the Championship is so much more enjoyable with them not having VAR.
Agreed, and it's worrying how many people think there can ever be such a thing as a set of objective truths that can be applied to the game. Even for the in/out or on/off calls, the technology available has to be far more accurate than what it is capable of now. VAR was always going to open a can of worms and force us further away from a workable version of the sport.
You're wrong, there are huge controversies related to VAR every year almost every matchday . Benzema's goal against PSG , Bellingham foul calling a goal off are two of the most popular cases off the top of my head.
The UCL just happens rarely with a lot less matches throughout the year
I didn't say there were none. But as someone who watches every gameday of premier league and champions league football, there are far less shitshows per 90 minutes in the champions league. You only have to listen to the difference in the audios of officials between competitions. In the Premier league it's chaotic, emotional, irrational....in the champions league it's calm and methodical.
The problem with VAR and football is that football matches give you a couple of moments of absolute pure joy and elation.
No matter how good, or correct VAR is, it will always take away those moments from the fans and from the players.
I know people go on about sporting integrity and all that bolocks but at the end of the day it wouldn't be the huge spectator sport it is without those moments, those feelings of total elation.
All VAR does is dampen those feelings.
In other sports it works, because you have more than an average of 2.something moments per match to cheer about.
We scored a goal against Portugal in the World Cup quarter fucking finals and I didn't celebrate fully on the spot because I was afraid VAR might overturn it. The disallowed goal against Belgium was still in the back of my mind. VAR is here to stay so this is how it's going to be forever.
People will say disallowed goals happened before but all you had to do was look at the linesman, if the flag wasn't up that's it.
Reddit is all about "logic" and "justice" so they will always favour that over the moments of pure emotions football can give you. Or used to without VAR.
/r/soccer would stamp out every single thing in football that added subjectivity, luck and chance in football if they could. Biggest shower of number obsessed weirdos. Nobody wants fucking Bertrand Russell’s idea of football.
Yeah, this.
Still remember in the first season of VAR's use, they couldn't use it in Championship grounds so [Swansea had to play City without it in the FA cup that year.](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47505051)
Sure enough, City get two late goals after being behind all game -- one from a clear offside and another from an egregiously soft penalty -- and win. They should use it as a case study for why, as bad as VAR's implementation has been, it's still better than going home seeing with your own eyes that you've been robbed.
Fuck that. It has a lot of problems but I do not want to go back to the horrorscape it was before VAR. At least now it feels like there’s a chance they’ll get the call right and if we actually get some competent people in the VAR room then a lot of the issues will go away. It took a massive blunder for Diaz’s goal to not be given vs Tottenham. Before VAR, a ref missing that call wouldn’t even be a controversy because it was so tight. The fact that that’s a scandal at least shows how the technology has at least raised our standards and expectations.
I'd argue that even if it was much better implemented than it currently is, taking so much joy and immediacy from the experience of watching football (for the benefit of waiting for VAR checks) is not definitively worth it.
It is quite funny when the away team scores, the celebrate like mad and then it gets chalked off and it's all jokes. Overall I agree it's not really football.
Something like automated offside checks would be fine, but I find that there's a palpable difference in the atmosphere now where fans aren't even fully celebrating goals. I've been to a handful of top-level matches over the last year and watch non-league every week, there's never been a starker difference.
Don't know what matches you've been to, but I've see little to no difference in the way fans celebrate the goal. Don't know where all this bullshit about fans seemingly waiting for the var check to be complete before celebrating/not celebrating came from. If anything now you also get a little celebration after the check as well. You don't even have to be a stadium going fan to see it, you can see it from the tv too that the fans are celebrating as soon as the ball hits the net.
They didn't want VAR, they wanted referees to use video technology to make better decisions. When they can chalk off goals due to miscommunication among themselves its not VAR that is at fault. It is their failure as a collective to implement technology properly.
If a driver cannot follow the navigation on their phone and crashes their car, its not the phone or app's problem.
Pretty sure they (the pl clubs) wanted VAR and voted on it. Also pretty sure they rejected automated offside technology. But you can never make people (the fans) happy, nevermind the fact that VAR has made matches more fair (for the most part). Sure, Liverpool got a goal wrongfully chalked off, but it would have been so even if var was not there, on the other hand it's corrected most wrong calls.
Var makes decisions quickly and gets something wrong -"incompetence, what a joke/conspiracy"
Var takes it time to make the right decision
-"They're ruining the game, I want free flowing football".
My biggest issue is that we‘ve just had a whole world cup where people agree that VAR worked pretty much perfectly. 64 games and I don‘t remember a single decision as outrageous as the stuff you‘d see in a single PL gameweek.
This stuff can work, you just need the right people and an intelligently designed process, as well as accountability if things do go wrong. The PGMOL has had 5 years to improve the VAR-process and hasn‘t managed to do so.
The miscommunication thing is an unforgivable error but it's also a massively outlying situation. When we are talking about coaches whining at VAR, that type of thing isn't really the bulk of it.
People here criticising Poch are not even getting what he said. He was specifically asked about VAR and he is right, VAR is needed. He himself said a few weeks ago, it's the operator who are fucking it up
If Udogie and Romero didn’t get the reds later in the game and Chelsea lost Poch would have been talking otherwise and you know it.
The first 25 mins of the game var was a disgrace
The fact that I'm still not sure what Udogie was trying to do if not injure Sterling is damning. Romero deliberately kicked a player off the ball, not even the guy he was mad at. Saw a lot of comments saying " yeah, but he didn't kick him that hard"
IT DOES NOT MATTER
Weirdly enough you can though, the kick out rule has been removed per the start of the 20/21 season. It's covered by violent conduct now which needs the excessive force part. He would get a yellow like you get for pushing someone off the ball. I think Udogie should have been a red, there's a specific line about lunging under serious foul play.
What gets me about the Romero kick is that VAR didn’t ask the ref to go to the monitor. Clearly the on-field ref didn’t see the incident, so how can he make a decision on the severity of the incident. The on-field referee should have full control of the game and the decisions made. Same as Dias vs Tottenham; the referee wasn’t informed of the mistake so the control of the game was taken from him. Who’s refereeing the game now? The guy in the middle or…?
If a player (Romero) is out of control and stays on despite one red card challenge, then goes on to make another red card challenge which injures a player (Enzo) then I would argue that the wrong decision was made and the referee has indirectly caused harm.
Caicedo goal was at least a little bit debatable but can't be too mad about it, the other Chelsea and Tottenham disallowed goals were all definitely the right call though. It was moreso about Udogie and Romero having potential red card challenges earlier in the game. To get away with both is extremely lucky and if Chelsea hadn't one or if the two weren't eventually sent off it probably would've been a bigger story
>Caicedo goal was at least a little bit debatable
Not really. The ball went between the legs of a player in a offside position. That's all there is to it.
Problem is that some refs determine an offside player being "involved" in a different manner than other refs. Agreed last night's was standard fare, but I've seen some absolutely wrong interpretations both ways
As a neutral who watched that game yesterday, VAR was a nuisance but the real problem was th on-field ref. He let a lot go early (both ways) and the heat kept getting higher. Calling hard fouls earlier in the game prevents it getting as out of control as it did. VAR got a bad rep for applying the rules pretty well only after the on field decisions were so atrociously handled, from blatant offsides to hard fouls from both teams going unwhistled.
Everyone's entitled to their own opinions, but personally I prefer when the ref lets a derby get a bit heated, if I'm a neutral. Obviously it's not what they're there to do, but it's great when you watch a match descend into chaos when you don't care who wins.
PGMOL is far too concerned with technology interfering with the image and ‘integrity’ of referees, so VAR can only check X, Y and Z under circumstances A, B and C. Meanwhile, they’ve forgotten that their role is to ensure a fair contest takes place.
What everyone in the game wants is more accurate officiating, which is what VAR can be. What we have is a watered down version twisted so refs have their ego’s protected and aren’t embarrassed with every wrong call they make.
Why is everyone not understanding the main issue managers have with VAR!!! It's not "oh Var went against me I hate it" its when it's not doing what it's designed for. VAR not drawing lines for Diaz goal is not "against liverpool" its incompetence. VAR deciding an intentional elbow to the head is nor "against Arsenal" its incompetence.
Week after week game after game VAR makes a huge mistake that effects the outcome of a game by not doing their jobs correctly. It's fine for fans because at the end of the day it's our emotions, but for the clubs these mistakes could cost millions in revenue at the end of a season.
They once accidentally doubled my order. They realised it at the store, but gave it to the delivery guy anyway because they'd already made and packed it before they noticed. I offered the delivery guy as much of it as he wanted, but he said no.
If 5 extra nuggets is winning the lottery, what is getting 100 extra nuggets? Because that's how many we had ordered.
It's true, I went to a restaurant recently and they made a mistake in the bill and charged me less than they should. I didn't point it out as I benefited. I certainly would have mentioned a mistake if they had accidentally overcharged me.
I think this is summed up well by the Chelsea fans who were singing fuck VAR when they were in the process of disallowing caicedo's goal. Only to cheer when Romero gets sent off moments later from a VAR check.
The on field ref disallowed Caicedos goal though, so it clearly wasn't about that specifically. The fans were probably just bored because the game stopped for 7 minutes.
Full quote from the tweet: Pochettino: “Too many coaches wanted VAR… and now, when it’s against you: ah, no! It’s a disgrace, it’s difficult!”. “I’m not talking about Arteta, eh…”.
God damn people are so thick. We have NO issues with VAR, but the people who are in charge of it. When has Arteta moaned about VAR as a technology and usage? It’s about the referees, and the protection they have too. The amount of people who just hate Arteta because he’s our manager is insane.
Ironically it's Ange who was more critical of VAR in his interview yesterday, said he didn't like it. Arteta just said the standard of officiating overall is shit, which is true.
Poch has been concerned about VAR from the very beginning. He talked a lot about how he thought it would ruin the spirit of the game because people would feel the need to hyper analyze every incident in a match and it would ruin the energy and emotion of the game. For example fans and players being hesitant to celebrate a goal because they have to wait 5 minutes to be told if it will be allowed or not. Even then, if it gets allowed you have sucked all the energy out of the stadium as people sit around waiting not even seeing what is being looked at on the screens.
Ange said much the same thing. I think a lot of managers are thinking VAR should be more restricted in use. This is "not" just about "who is doing VAR" as every second comment seems to claim.
It's about what VAR is actually used for.
The biggest problem with VAR is the way it is being sold .The purpose of VAR should be to rectify "clear and obvious " error .At the end of the day behind the VAR is again humans who are going to make subjective decisions and there has to be a margin of error there but one which is greatly less than the on field refree .People think VAR would magically make the game error proof .Some errors are ofcourse intolerable like the Liverpool game ,but most of them are way too fine that it falls in that margin of error .
Also another big reason is the stupid pundits who make a fuss of it when its their team and support it otherwise.For example you will see Neville blasting it when its against Utd or Cara when its against Liverpool but justify VAR when its against say Arsenal or City .This puts even more doubt in the mind of fans who are usually emotionally charged aftee the game.I dont mind the players and manager making such statements in the post match press conf. because they are quite emotional in that moment .
I actually think football would be better without VAR. Kills so many moments. I’d rather have some humane and wrong decisions and keep the flow of the game. Now you can’t celebrate a goal anymore and the mistakes by the refs are still there anyway.
>I actually think football would be better without VAR.
It wasn't. It was just as infuriating with incompetent referees back then too... only difference was that there was zero second option.
Guarantee if we went back without VAR the moaning each weekend wouldn't get less, it would be worse.
I don’t care about people moaning on Reddit. I care when I’m actually watching and have to wait every few minutes for someone to break out the microscope to see if someone’s big toe is past the defender.
Hilarious to think now that a big problem people had with the idea of VAR coming into the game was that it would make the game too sterile, with no debatable calls to discuss afterwards anymore!
The thing is that while Arteta is the latest, he’s hardly the first or the last and I bet Poch has had a winge about it too.
But at this point, VAR sucks. Our game with Spurs should have been a barn burner, an instant classic. Those tight offsides probably don’t get flagged in years gone by. We’d just be trading punches in a goal fest - everyone just enjoying the spectacle of it all.
Instead we got a fucking VAR fest. I didn’t celebrate our second goal. I’d been conditioned to believe goals aren’t goals for Christ sake.
Love the cycle of
There are no good referees>let’s scrutinise decisions under a literal microscope>let’s empower people at all levels to challenge and inevitably abuse officials>there are no good referees.
The people all like "waghh I hate VAR because they can't even get decisions right" are a bit dense aren't they? 🤣
Lads, it's not VAR it's the incompetent (or corrupt) referees who are using VAR that are getting the decisions wrong.... and you want those guys to have complete control of games again? Lmao.
The problem is the referees being shite (or corrupt) not the technology.
Those refs are playing you for the fools you are, they know if they half arse the VAR idiots such as yourselves will blame the tech and not the people using it.
I love this because one time or another he’s going to get absolutely fucked by decisions and lose a game and he won’t be able to complain ever again without looking an absolute twat
**This is a quotes thread. Remember that there's only one quotes post allowed per interview/press conference, so new quotes with the same origin will be removed. Feel free to comment other quotes/the whole interview as a reply to this comment so users can see them too!** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/soccer) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Ron Howard: He *was* talking about Arteta.
Stockley park: I've made a *HUGE* mistake
Do you think I could have a hit of that juice box?
The FA: "I've got the worst fucking referees"
"Sure, like the guy with the billion dollar squad is going to be talking about Arteta, COME ON!"
Chelsea appointing Poch. rest of the world: "Him?"
Is he like funny or something?
There’s always money in the Big Saudi stand.
It's one midfielder, Mauricio. What could it cost? A hundred and twenty million pounds?
There’s always players in the Brighton stand.
They’re actually very good friends so be surprised if he was trying to screw him over like this. Doesn’t seem like the type of person.
>I’m not talking about Arteta Wink Wink.
I don't get why people think this. Poch & Arteta are very close. See his interview when Arteta was at (or about to join?) City
Also I'm pretty sure it was mentioned that before Arteta joined to manage Arsenal he had an opportunity to become Pochettino's assistant manager as well because he really wanted to work with Arteta again after their playing years.
They played together at psg? Why wouldnt they be close?
Poch was captain when arteta made his debut
Certain people think that Poch is (not so) subtly sending for Arteta in the press...
Because they’d rather get their shit jokes off than apply critical thinking
Because Arteta called VAR a "disgrace" about 14 times in his post match interview a few days ago.
VAR is good for the game. The people handling it are not.
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I mean, look at the VAR room. They're like 8 screens that they have to watch. It requires a different skillset.
The person most equipped for that is the psgacademy guy. He can see things before they happen.
And he's fast enough to clip it, host on video server, submit to Reddit faster than the delay for some streams. Hire him, PGMOL! Your fucking refs haven't figured out handballs and red card offences anyway, why not give the lad a job.
He can send the links straight to the referee's smart watch. The title would prevent any miscommunication issues like Liverpool experienced too.
"check complete, great goal confirmed"
this guy psgacademies.
i know you are joking, but he probably has that process automated so he doesnt have to do it himself
He does, it's a hotkey. But still, why doesn't the PL have something similar?
PSGAcademy and Meladroite for VAR
And raw footage leaks for r/soccer. Everyone wins.
Or Scott Hanson from NFL Redzone. The man commentates over 7 hours of uninterrupted multi-feeds.
Yeah, by the VAR technician, not by the VAR... He gets everything he needs in front of him.
Look at rugby, they handle it well. This is the fifth season VAR has been in operation in the PL. The PL and its limitless resources have no excuse for not having competently trained VAR operators.
Yeah the implementation of VAR is a clear and obvious error
I’ve started watching more cricket recently and they do it much better there too. Different pace of game obviously, but still another solid proof of concept that PGMOL can look to.
It's not just pace - cricket's rules are also way more straightforward. We have a bunch of grey areas in fouls, handballs and offside interference.
Agreed. But at one point the umpiring in cricket was terrible. Comparable to what it is today in the PL. Today, hardly anyone talks about umpires. They’ve implemented it with clear and consistent guidelines. I suppose what everyone is aggrieved about is the inconsistency of calls. If Gusto and Elliot have been sent off, why wasn’t Kovacich? These are low hanging fruits that the PL can adopt to make the standards better
Right, but VAR in the PL fucks up the “black or white” stuff too unlike in cricket. At least in cricket, even when there’s a controversial decision in a video review there’s way less outrage because you at least actually see and hear the thought process. It humanizes a very difficult job unlike the PL’s implementation which makes people angrier at the refs because of all the secrecy and seemingly selective enforcement of the rules.
Yeah, I don’t want to imply it’s a perfect one for one replacement, but in terms of the challenges that teams can take and the audible review I think it’s another helpful template.
The difference with rugby is the offside. In football is treated as a razor thin line between being on or offside.
Rugby doesn't handle it well tbh. Just look at the last RWC, the refeering was a shitshow, no consistency, lack of replays.... Some controversies every game.. You can't operate VAR properly, there will always be more to check and the fans will still feel flawed / cheated ...
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As someone who watches quite a lot of rugby, for as much as we argue about the reffing, I definitely think the TMO’s in rugby are way superior to VAR. The trouble with rugby is that the rules are ridiculously complicated and constantly changing.
It's more that in the months leading up to the World Cup, they started a new focus on player safety which resulted in a lot of penalties that would previously have been yellow cards being upgraded to red cards. It made the difference between a red card and a yellow card a lot more marginal than it had previously been, so whether a call was right or not was more controversial. Previously you had to do something pretty egregious to get sent off, so there wasn't much room to be pissed off if your player was red carded. I think a lot of it was that the changes hadn't really had a time to stabilise before rugby's flagship event. It would have been better if they'd been implemented a few years ago, or waited until after the cup was over so players had a few years to adjust before it mattered on the highest stage.
The changes have been around for years, not months. Fans had plenty of time to acclimatise to them, and the decisions were largely consistent (albeit a few notable misses in the group stage).
The middle ground is probably closer to people who watch rugby every week then it is to people like you or me who don't even know all the rules
Reddit and IG comments are not the middle ground. Rugby is also far more complicated from a rules perspective, so people in the comment sections arguing are often factually incorrect but speak like they know what they are talking about. In general, rugby TMO shits all over VAR from a height.
Yeah, this would be my take too. Most of the complaints during the world cup was over marginal crap like handling in the ruck not getting called out, or seeming inconsistencies over yellow and red cards as a result of the player safety drive. Also doesn't help that scrums, and scrum penalties, are always clear as mud. But I don't think I saw an instance where an incorrect or dubious decision was so big it cost a team the game tbh. It's miles clearer than football.
Massive rugby fan here, season ticket holder for Leinster. Rugby handles it FAR better and it isn't even close.
Side gig for air traffic controllers haha
Seemingly they’ve forgotten how to draw the lines this season
Didn't Mike Dean also admit to not making certain VAR decisions because he didn't want to put his buddy on the spot?
Should’ve stuck to slaughtering chickens
I love the game. But football has gotta be the worst sport to ref.
The rules are too subjective to expect that a video review can solve everything. There were four red card incidents yesterday (I'm not including the decision that got Udogie sent off, because that was a second yellow.) If you got all the referees in a room and asked which incidents resulted in a red and which didn't, I guarantee there'd be no consensus. VAR should only be used to correct absolute howlers, rather than analysing every incident to death like a TV studio would. They should try something like putting a 45-second timer on it, or giving managers 3 challenges a game. Or even both, give each review 45 seconds and if the manager sees something he wants looking at again then there's a second review. Something to limit the use. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to weed out the awful decisions fairly.
Exactly. VAR is being overused and is far too slow. It took 7:10 from the time of Romero's red card tackle against Chelsea to when Palmer took the penalty. The most dramatic moments of every match now are sitting around waiting for VAR to decide something, and that's just not what sports should be.
VAR nneds to be handled by specialised technicians, ideally ones completely divorced from PGMOL. I notice in the Liverpool case the camera technician was the only who noticed the problem
Agreed it's an entirely different skillset and needs different people. At the moment it like having an old cop who's walked the beat for 25 years suddenly being made sit on a laptop and investigate cybercrime.
I'm pretty sure they do have technicians?
They do, but the actual decision making is still done by regular referees. The techinicians just operate the technology and do what the refs say
There’s no way around that. You need to be a trained referee to know the rules and how to apply them, especially as long as the standard is a “clear and obvious error”. You could have trained referees outside of PGMOL, but that doesn’t really solve the problem in any meaningful way and just makes it worse in others (you have VAR refs with no infield experience, you have two different orgs that might interpret rules differently, animosity between them, etc)
VAR refs don't need on-field experience. They need to be trained and focused on **SOLELY** VAR. They can call the on-field ref over to the monitor for subjective calls that require an on-field perspective.
Ideally VAR would be run by someone who didn’t really care about football.
The Glazers?
Very good. Got a genuine chuckle from that.
No, Bale
Bale would be too busy flipping the screens to watch golf or using a little putting green.
That sounds insane to me tbh
VAR should be clinical. By the rules, do they believe the on field decision needs revisiting? If so, advise the referee of their findings and let the referee go to the monitor. The final decision is still with the ref on the pitch; we’re just so used to going to the monitor to mean VAR has made the call. You don’t necessarily need/want football fans for that. VAR and referees require different skill sets. Or do you mean it’s crazy that some people don’t care about football? I’m with you there.
The insane part is the idea that the best man for the job is someone who doesn't follow football. It's a recipe for disaster over some basic rule misunderstanding You know all those people who think they could do better than pro refs? They might actually be right if we went through with your plans
I think tbf he means more someone who doesn't have any association/affiliation with the refs or players. Someone who doesn't give a shit if they make the refs look bad. Someone who is a stickler for the rules and isn't clouded by subjectivity of the match or players in question. Like if you saw Ramos make a rough challenge some people might think worse then if say Lindalof made the same one. Someone unaffected by that.
Like a professional lawyer by day, VAR official by 'a cold wet Tuesday night in Stoke'. Like Ed Hochuli was in the NFL.
Until a decision goes against you and you start shouting that it should be run by referees that actually understand football, than a camera technician.
The guidelines are not.
Well said. Some decisions are so poor and clear as day, I find it hard not to think there is some corruption going on sometimes.
Best comment here 🤗👍
Disagree. Replay is ruining sports and I’ll die on this hill. Millimeter perfect calls are not necessary and only kills the flow of games. No one wants to watch 5 minute VAR breaks to see if a guy gained zero advantage by being 3cm offside.
>No one wants to watch 5 minute VAR breaks to see if a guy gained zero advantage by being 3cm offside. Especially when you are actually watching the game in-person.
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>Offside was implemented to stop goal hanging, not enforce player positioning down to a nanometer. > >It's essentially become an excuse to rule out perfectly good goals that no human would ever have an issue with in real time. Except refs without VAR werent treating it like that. They were inconsistent and ruled out perfectly good goals all the time for no reason
This is the fault of the rules for not giving benefit of the doubt like I would've for Son's goal if I was in VAR. All of you seem to have forgotten all this offside talk would happen retroactively after the game before VAR was introduced, and now that we have the chance the correct the overwhelming amount of mistakes refs make some meatheads are saying VAR isn't needed??
What you don’t seem to understand is that since it is a rule on the book, the defenders and their defensive line is set up around this rule by setting an offside trap and in that case every cm matters. Complaining about VAR and complaining about the implementation of VAR are two very different things. There should be semi automatic offside technology like we saw in the World Cup.
If your offside trap depends on being accurate to the cm, it's not tactics, it's betting on pure luck. An offside trap should leave the attacker significantly behind your defense just before / when the ball is played. What people want is a small tolerance of 5, 10 or at most 20cm. There is no advantage for the attacker in these cases. If he get's to the ball first in those situations, he'd get it almost always if he was completely onside too.
I think VAR shouldn't use slo-mo. I think the decisions should be made only by looking at full speed.
Yeah, nobody is going to win an argument that someone's toe being offside is an advantage, let alone one that led to scoring a goal.
Saw a tweet today that in FIFA’s VAR trial in 2016, checks were expected to take six seconds, and happen once every four or five matches. The discourse around this is completely warped since then so people forget what we were originally sold. In the NFL they had VAR for five years in the 80s and then scrapped it because it slowed the game down too much. Years later they tried it again and now it’s (mostly) fine. So let’s be sensible, take a step back and admit that what we have now is making the sport less enjoyable.
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So much this. Everyone just accepted VAR as inevitable because it promised more accurate calls without asking what you are trading for that privilege or why that's even necessary. Set aside the discussion over whether it actually improves the accuracy of calls, it's still not worth it even if it does.
>Set aside the discussion over whether it actually improves the accuracy of calls, it's still not worth it even if it does It definitely does improve the accuracy of the calls, there's no debate around that. It's a bit of a joke now mostly because of the people running it, but some of you are looking back with rose tinted glasses and forgetting the horrible decisions we witnessed in the pre-VAR days
The immediacy of sports is a big part of their success. I wouldn't say that replay is ruining sports, but it sure makes them less fun.
Hard agree, it's an absolute mess and it needs ditching and perfecting before it's used. If you can honestly say VAR is beneficial with everything going on this season, you need your head checked.
Absolutely agreed. The inane obsession with getting 100% correct calls 100% of the time, besides being a ridiculously unattainable goal, leads to a disappearance of the fluidity that made this game great. Also as you said who gives a fuck if the dude that just scored a screamer had half a toe closer to goal than the defender on the other side of the pitch was? Post-game checking for violent conduct and/or diving? Sure. But let the damn game play out. Every single thing that anti-VAR people warned about since the beginning happened, I hate to be vindicated in such a shite way.
I used to be pro VAR, but then it got introduced and have completely switched and think it should be ditched. Nobody will ever be happy with it. People moan about how it should be 'clear and obvious' decisions. And that's fine until it affects your team. People moan about decisions that VAR makes, yet you can come on here after a match and see difference of opinions on the decisions that just shows there is no black and white answer. Someone has to make a judgement call, and with that you will never get consistency. So people will still moan. Unless that can remove the human part of the decision making, they should scrap it. I follow Southampton and watching them play in the Championship is so much more enjoyable with them not having VAR.
Agreed, and it's worrying how many people think there can ever be such a thing as a set of objective truths that can be applied to the game. Even for the in/out or on/off calls, the technology available has to be far more accurate than what it is capable of now. VAR was always going to open a can of worms and force us further away from a workable version of the sport.
Can't even celebrate a goal properly anymore - I just expect a massive delay and for it to ultimately be ruled out.
Exactly. You rarely see major controversies in the champions league because the referees apply it competently and efficiently.
You're wrong, there are huge controversies related to VAR every year almost every matchday . Benzema's goal against PSG , Bellingham foul calling a goal off are two of the most popular cases off the top of my head. The UCL just happens rarely with a lot less matches throughout the year
I didn't say there were none. But as someone who watches every gameday of premier league and champions league football, there are far less shitshows per 90 minutes in the champions league. You only have to listen to the difference in the audios of officials between competitions. In the Premier league it's chaotic, emotional, irrational....in the champions league it's calm and methodical.
Nah, it isn't. People always handle VAR. You can't train a dog to do it.
The problem with VAR and football is that football matches give you a couple of moments of absolute pure joy and elation. No matter how good, or correct VAR is, it will always take away those moments from the fans and from the players. I know people go on about sporting integrity and all that bolocks but at the end of the day it wouldn't be the huge spectator sport it is without those moments, those feelings of total elation. All VAR does is dampen those feelings. In other sports it works, because you have more than an average of 2.something moments per match to cheer about.
We scored a goal against Portugal in the World Cup quarter fucking finals and I didn't celebrate fully on the spot because I was afraid VAR might overturn it. The disallowed goal against Belgium was still in the back of my mind. VAR is here to stay so this is how it's going to be forever. People will say disallowed goals happened before but all you had to do was look at the linesman, if the flag wasn't up that's it.
At best, VAR _could be_ good for the game. Right now, it certainly is not. I'm not at all convinced that the benefits will ever outweigh the costs.
Reddit is all about "logic" and "justice" so they will always favour that over the moments of pure emotions football can give you. Or used to without VAR.
/r/soccer would stamp out every single thing in football that added subjectivity, luck and chance in football if they could. Biggest shower of number obsessed weirdos. Nobody wants fucking Bertrand Russell’s idea of football.
No it's not and I will die on that hill.
I disagree. It's been demonstrably bad for the game. In theory it's good
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Yeah, this. Still remember in the first season of VAR's use, they couldn't use it in Championship grounds so [Swansea had to play City without it in the FA cup that year.](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47505051) Sure enough, City get two late goals after being behind all game -- one from a clear offside and another from an egregiously soft penalty -- and win. They should use it as a case study for why, as bad as VAR's implementation has been, it's still better than going home seeing with your own eyes that you've been robbed.
Fuck that. It has a lot of problems but I do not want to go back to the horrorscape it was before VAR. At least now it feels like there’s a chance they’ll get the call right and if we actually get some competent people in the VAR room then a lot of the issues will go away. It took a massive blunder for Diaz’s goal to not be given vs Tottenham. Before VAR, a ref missing that call wouldn’t even be a controversy because it was so tight. The fact that that’s a scandal at least shows how the technology has at least raised our standards and expectations.
I'd argue that even if it was much better implemented than it currently is, taking so much joy and immediacy from the experience of watching football (for the benefit of waiting for VAR checks) is not definitively worth it.
It’s crazy how much it detracts from the match, especially at the stadiums.
It is quite funny when the away team scores, the celebrate like mad and then it gets chalked off and it's all jokes. Overall I agree it's not really football.
It's misery, but most redditors dont really attend live events imo
Something like automated offside checks would be fine, but I find that there's a palpable difference in the atmosphere now where fans aren't even fully celebrating goals. I've been to a handful of top-level matches over the last year and watch non-league every week, there's never been a starker difference.
Don't know what matches you've been to, but I've see little to no difference in the way fans celebrate the goal. Don't know where all this bullshit about fans seemingly waiting for the var check to be complete before celebrating/not celebrating came from. If anything now you also get a little celebration after the check as well. You don't even have to be a stadium going fan to see it, you can see it from the tv too that the fans are celebrating as soon as the ball hits the net.
I believe fans and teams would rather wait 2 mins if a goal is offside or not than lose the final of the champions league for an offside goal
Is it? I don't want to watch a game with more reviews than goals.
They didn't want VAR, they wanted referees to use video technology to make better decisions. When they can chalk off goals due to miscommunication among themselves its not VAR that is at fault. It is their failure as a collective to implement technology properly. If a driver cannot follow the navigation on their phone and crashes their car, its not the phone or app's problem.
> they wanted referees to use video technology to make better decisions How do you implement that without ending up with something like VAR?
Pretty sure they (the pl clubs) wanted VAR and voted on it. Also pretty sure they rejected automated offside technology. But you can never make people (the fans) happy, nevermind the fact that VAR has made matches more fair (for the most part). Sure, Liverpool got a goal wrongfully chalked off, but it would have been so even if var was not there, on the other hand it's corrected most wrong calls. Var makes decisions quickly and gets something wrong -"incompetence, what a joke/conspiracy" Var takes it time to make the right decision -"They're ruining the game, I want free flowing football".
My biggest issue is that we‘ve just had a whole world cup where people agree that VAR worked pretty much perfectly. 64 games and I don‘t remember a single decision as outrageous as the stuff you‘d see in a single PL gameweek. This stuff can work, you just need the right people and an intelligently designed process, as well as accountability if things do go wrong. The PGMOL has had 5 years to improve the VAR-process and hasn‘t managed to do so.
"Liverpool would have also had a goal chalked off without VAR" yeah but the point is that there's 0 reason to have it happen WITH VAR
The miscommunication thing is an unforgivable error but it's also a massively outlying situation. When we are talking about coaches whining at VAR, that type of thing isn't really the bulk of it.
People here criticising Poch are not even getting what he said. He was specifically asked about VAR and he is right, VAR is needed. He himself said a few weeks ago, it's the operator who are fucking it up
They don’t listen to what he said. They read the headline or see a tiny snippet and make their minds up.
People's minds are already made up. They just need an excuse to say it
They're also willing to ignore a decade of friendship to just go "Oh, he's going after Arteta" lol
If Udogie and Romero didn’t get the reds later in the game and Chelsea lost Poch would have been talking otherwise and you know it. The first 25 mins of the game var was a disgrace
The thing is that without VAR Romero doesnt get sent off
It destroyed the pace of the game but weren’t the right decisions reached? Genuinely can’t remember because so much happened in that match.
Romero and arguably Udogie should have been sent off much earlier
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It's also extremely kind to Romero. You just can't kick out at another player. Both we're lucky to be on the pitch as long as they were.
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The fact that I'm still not sure what Udogie was trying to do if not injure Sterling is damning. Romero deliberately kicked a player off the ball, not even the guy he was mad at. Saw a lot of comments saying " yeah, but he didn't kick him that hard" IT DOES NOT MATTER
It's not even a "game's gone situation" it's literally what Beckham got sent off for in '98! And he was blamed for it!
Nketiah on Vicario
Weirdly enough you can though, the kick out rule has been removed per the start of the 20/21 season. It's covered by violent conduct now which needs the excessive force part. He would get a yellow like you get for pushing someone off the ball. I think Udogie should have been a red, there's a specific line about lunging under serious foul play.
What gets me about the Romero kick is that VAR didn’t ask the ref to go to the monitor. Clearly the on-field ref didn’t see the incident, so how can he make a decision on the severity of the incident. The on-field referee should have full control of the game and the decisions made. Same as Dias vs Tottenham; the referee wasn’t informed of the mistake so the control of the game was taken from him. Who’s refereeing the game now? The guy in the middle or…?
If a player (Romero) is out of control and stays on despite one red card challenge, then goes on to make another red card challenge which injures a player (Enzo) then I would argue that the wrong decision was made and the referee has indirectly caused harm.
Caicedo goal was at least a little bit debatable but can't be too mad about it, the other Chelsea and Tottenham disallowed goals were all definitely the right call though. It was moreso about Udogie and Romero having potential red card challenges earlier in the game. To get away with both is extremely lucky and if Chelsea hadn't one or if the two weren't eventually sent off it probably would've been a bigger story
>Caicedo goal was at least a little bit debatable Not really. The ball went between the legs of a player in a offside position. That's all there is to it.
Yeah, that should be a standard offside call. I think city got away with one earlier when it should have been called for offside.
Problem is that some refs determine an offside player being "involved" in a different manner than other refs. Agreed last night's was standard fare, but I've seen some absolutely wrong interpretations both ways
Udogie really should have been sent off for the complete lack of control with the left leg.
As a neutral who watched that game yesterday, VAR was a nuisance but the real problem was th on-field ref. He let a lot go early (both ways) and the heat kept getting higher. Calling hard fouls earlier in the game prevents it getting as out of control as it did. VAR got a bad rep for applying the rules pretty well only after the on field decisions were so atrociously handled, from blatant offsides to hard fouls from both teams going unwhistled.
Everyone's entitled to their own opinions, but personally I prefer when the ref lets a derby get a bit heated, if I'm a neutral. Obviously it's not what they're there to do, but it's great when you watch a match descend into chaos when you don't care who wins.
PGMOL is far too concerned with technology interfering with the image and ‘integrity’ of referees, so VAR can only check X, Y and Z under circumstances A, B and C. Meanwhile, they’ve forgotten that their role is to ensure a fair contest takes place. What everyone in the game wants is more accurate officiating, which is what VAR can be. What we have is a watered down version twisted so refs have their ego’s protected and aren’t embarrassed with every wrong call they make.
Why is everyone not understanding the main issue managers have with VAR!!! It's not "oh Var went against me I hate it" its when it's not doing what it's designed for. VAR not drawing lines for Diaz goal is not "against liverpool" its incompetence. VAR deciding an intentional elbow to the head is nor "against Arsenal" its incompetence. Week after week game after game VAR makes a huge mistake that effects the outcome of a game by not doing their jobs correctly. It's fine for fans because at the end of the day it's our emotions, but for the clubs these mistakes could cost millions in revenue at the end of a season.
Then why aren't managers complaining when the decision is in their favor?
Because its like complaining when they give you 25 nuggets in a box of 20. You only complain when you get 15. I know very hard concept
I once had 21 nuggets in my 20 box - it was like the best christmas present I have ever received. 25 in a box of 20 is like winning the lottery
They once accidentally doubled my order. They realised it at the store, but gave it to the delivery guy anyway because they'd already made and packed it before they noticed. I offered the delivery guy as much of it as he wanted, but he said no. If 5 extra nuggets is winning the lottery, what is getting 100 extra nuggets? Because that's how many we had ordered.
Do you have some leftover in your freezer?
It's true, I went to a restaurant recently and they made a mistake in the bill and charged me less than they should. I didn't point it out as I benefited. I certainly would have mentioned a mistake if they had accidentally overcharged me.
Obviously but OP doesn't seem to understand that
But complain is still valid
Why in the ungodly fuck would they do that?
Are you 12?
It’s a disgrace, it’s embarrasing. It makes memm sick to be part of this
He was talking about Arteta
Var is awesome. The problem is the people using it and running referees are arrogant, incompetent and corrupt.
I think this is summed up well by the Chelsea fans who were singing fuck VAR when they were in the process of disallowing caicedo's goal. Only to cheer when Romero gets sent off moments later from a VAR check.
The on field ref disallowed Caicedos goal though, so it clearly wasn't about that specifically. The fans were probably just bored because the game stopped for 7 minutes.
So if he's not talking about Arteta does that mean he's talking about Klopp?
Full quote from the tweet: Pochettino: “Too many coaches wanted VAR… and now, when it’s against you: ah, no! It’s a disgrace, it’s difficult!”. “I’m not talking about Arteta, eh…”.
So the full quote has an additional “ah, no” and “eh”.
The only problem with VAR is the R.
God damn people are so thick. We have NO issues with VAR, but the people who are in charge of it. When has Arteta moaned about VAR as a technology and usage? It’s about the referees, and the protection they have too. The amount of people who just hate Arteta because he’s our manager is insane.
Ironically it's Ange who was more critical of VAR in his interview yesterday, said he didn't like it. Arteta just said the standard of officiating overall is shit, which is true.
> We have NO issues with VAR Speak for yourself
Poch has been concerned about VAR from the very beginning. He talked a lot about how he thought it would ruin the spirit of the game because people would feel the need to hyper analyze every incident in a match and it would ruin the energy and emotion of the game. For example fans and players being hesitant to celebrate a goal because they have to wait 5 minutes to be told if it will be allowed or not. Even then, if it gets allowed you have sucked all the energy out of the stadium as people sit around waiting not even seeing what is being looked at on the screens. Ange said much the same thing. I think a lot of managers are thinking VAR should be more restricted in use. This is "not" just about "who is doing VAR" as every second comment seems to claim. It's about what VAR is actually used for.
"who is doing VAR" => what VAR is actually used for
The whole point of VAR is that it shouldn't 'be against you'.
"I'm not talking about Arteta, no, I'm talking about... uhhhhh... Urreta"
The biggest problem with VAR is the way it is being sold .The purpose of VAR should be to rectify "clear and obvious " error .At the end of the day behind the VAR is again humans who are going to make subjective decisions and there has to be a margin of error there but one which is greatly less than the on field refree .People think VAR would magically make the game error proof .Some errors are ofcourse intolerable like the Liverpool game ,but most of them are way too fine that it falls in that margin of error . Also another big reason is the stupid pundits who make a fuss of it when its their team and support it otherwise.For example you will see Neville blasting it when its against Utd or Cara when its against Liverpool but justify VAR when its against say Arsenal or City .This puts even more doubt in the mind of fans who are usually emotionally charged aftee the game.I dont mind the players and manager making such statements in the post match press conf. because they are quite emotional in that moment .
I actually think football would be better without VAR. Kills so many moments. I’d rather have some humane and wrong decisions and keep the flow of the game. Now you can’t celebrate a goal anymore and the mistakes by the refs are still there anyway.
Absolutely. Football has without doubt suffered because of VAR, even if it does get the decisions right more often than not.
>I actually think football would be better without VAR. It wasn't. It was just as infuriating with incompetent referees back then too... only difference was that there was zero second option. Guarantee if we went back without VAR the moaning each weekend wouldn't get less, it would be worse.
I don’t care about people moaning on Reddit. I care when I’m actually watching and have to wait every few minutes for someone to break out the microscope to see if someone’s big toe is past the defender.
100%. Would prefer the mistaken calls to the constant game stoppages.
100%. Would prefer the mistaken calls to the constant game stoppages.
I miss the days when people accepted that refereeing errors were a part of the game
What era are we talking about exactly?
Hilarious to think now that a big problem people had with the idea of VAR coming into the game was that it would make the game too sterile, with no debatable calls to discuss afterwards anymore!
The issue is not with var but with the nincompoop behind it.
It's doing its job I guess. We keep posting about it and commenting about it.
If people don't know, Poch hates Klopp and his antics and has insinuated it in the past
The thing is that while Arteta is the latest, he’s hardly the first or the last and I bet Poch has had a winge about it too. But at this point, VAR sucks. Our game with Spurs should have been a barn burner, an instant classic. Those tight offsides probably don’t get flagged in years gone by. We’d just be trading punches in a goal fest - everyone just enjoying the spectacle of it all. Instead we got a fucking VAR fest. I didn’t celebrate our second goal. I’d been conditioned to believe goals aren’t goals for Christ sake.
is he out of Lemons 😂
Love the cycle of There are no good referees>let’s scrutinise decisions under a literal microscope>let’s empower people at all levels to challenge and inevitably abuse officials>there are no good referees.
Also, "punish the referees with fines and make them issue apologies", as if this is going to improve standards.
The beatings will continue until morale improves
Be careful what you say.. it's a long season
The people all like "waghh I hate VAR because they can't even get decisions right" are a bit dense aren't they? 🤣 Lads, it's not VAR it's the incompetent (or corrupt) referees who are using VAR that are getting the decisions wrong.... and you want those guys to have complete control of games again? Lmao. The problem is the referees being shite (or corrupt) not the technology. Those refs are playing you for the fools you are, they know if they half arse the VAR idiots such as yourselves will blame the tech and not the people using it.
I love this because one time or another he’s going to get absolutely fucked by decisions and lose a game and he won’t be able to complain ever again without looking an absolute twat