Long post apologies!
I am posting this here and not in last night matchday thread because although it’s the events of last night and the aftermath that has crystalised my thoughts it is more general than that.
I am not going to go on about the rights and wrongs of the actual decision last night, but I am going to take issue with VAR in general. I have seen and read quite a lot today about this subject with Sky being properly pro VAR and people like Dermot Gallagher telling us that the 4 mins taken last night is acceptable and that this what we all signed up for.
It is not, fans in general were not fussed about VAR and football without it is without a question a better game to watch in the stadium. I was at Leyton Orient on Tuesday and at Spurs last night and my enjoyment of the game on Tuesday was not diminished by the lack of VAR. Whereas last night it was ruined by it! And not just by the goal being disallowed but by the whole process and the lack of clarity as to what is happening.
Properly used VAR can be a good thing ensuring that correct decisions re fouls, bad tackles and penalties, and even obvious offsides, are made and that is a good thing. Forensic processing of offsides that cannot be discerned by the human eye is not what anybody wants. Looking at last nights as a good example there is no one (Gooners and spammers apart) who would have questioned the validity of that goal if it had been awarded. Spending 4 minutes finding a reason to disallow goals is almost bringing the game into disrepute.
One other thing refereeing standards in Europe are getting to be as bad as in this country, we have had some awful ones this season and last nights was another who lacked any bottle, time wasting was left completely unchecked (yet again) and no real time was added on for it.