Irrespective of today’s errors I still don’t want it. It ruins the spontaneous excitement of football. It takes away talking points. It makes football too scientific and certain and the game as a whole spectacle and experience suffers from it. Yes it would have awarded us 2 pens today, and Chelsea’s first would have been chalked off but on the other side of the coin, our last gasp winner v BHA would have been disallowed. Southampton had as blatant a penalty at CCS turned down as ours v Watford. VAR would have chalked off Everton’s goal v us up there as it was our throw in. It’s great when they go your way but gutting when it goes against us. I’d hate to lose that. That is and always has been one of the great things about football; the rough with the smooth, the debates about offside or not or a penalty or not or a red card or not- do we really want to lose that? Sadly we will. I’m sure there are many other incidents we could point to throughout the season but honestly I have hated it since it ruined the World Cup Final and this season it has been too instrumental in the Champions League.
I tend to disagree Nin. Yes it takes away some talking points but it gives others......and the luck will always be there and the interpretation too. However, it has shown itself useful to remove the absolutely blatant errors...and that I reckon is a good thing. I think it has (or will) do away with a bit of the diving too.....or at least expose/explode the myth about certain individuals.
I see both arguments especially from a traditionalists point of view. However, football isn't traditional and players and managers use everything they can to influence officials. Added to that, the game is played at a much greater pace these days. Furthermore, with the amount of money involved now, basic and obvious mistakes by officials need to be obviated. The system needs fine tuning, but for me VAR is the way forward in getting a level playing field over the course of a season.
Despite the drawbacks and the "loss of flow" to the game, it's got to be a leveller at the very least. All too often the officials (refs and linos) are relucant to penalise the elite clubs as witnessed yesterday. Decisions in the penalty area will effectively be taken away from the match officials who have to make instant decisions. I realise the matchday ref will always have the ultimate decision but at least he'll be publicly forced to view the incidents and then decide rather than just ignoring the issues. On the field stuff like severity of the offence (no card, yellow or red) will still more or less be down to the ref on the day, although there is more control with VAR. We saw yesterday the difference standards applied to each side. Jorginho should have been yellow carded at least once before he eventually was and so should have seen red half way through the first half. Arter gets a yellow straight away, although probably deserved, that's not the point. There are disadvantages as pointed out, but it must make for a more level playing field for the "minnows" such as us amongst this elite lot.
