I'm guessing that if Sterling was offside they would have had it checked before the teams finished celebrating and kicked off again . The ref could even delay kick off at that point . The check where the second was disallowed was pretty efficient but our players were not in a hurry to restart as they were already berating the officials. Pretty sure teams will start getting booked for demanding V.A.R checks if they do it too much.
Yeah, agreed. I just thought the restarts for both the the first and fourth goals were pretty quick, so there wouldn’t have been time for even a more efficient review. And we have heard the commentators usually saying “a VAR check has been done” or something like that with the more efficient system, but I didn’t hear it on these. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, though, just we don’t know - and I thought that’s a bit weird. Water under the bridge though. It’s going to get really annoying if players appeal for VAR, so hopefully the reality is that they have sped up checks considerably.
They already do. There wasn't so much of it in the Euros because VARs had sizeable back up teams helping them. In effect, everything was being checked as it happened. To do the same for all EPL games would require resources which simply aren't currently available. That's my understanding anyway.
I don't want to sound complacent but I think there is a touch of over-reaction among some of our fans to the start of the season. If some of the unlucky ricochets hadn't happened, and if we had scored in that amazing melee right at the end of the Liverpool game, we might be looking at two defeats, 1-2 and 0-3, and everyone might be saying that wasn't too bad given who we were playing and the disruption to pre-season. I know those are big IFs, and I don't want to pretend that the Man City performance wasn't dire, but I really do think that the stark reality of 0-8 has caused us to panic somewhat and has also led to stuff like that TalkSport nonsense.
You can possibly argue that the 8 conceded stat was not representative of our 2 performances but not the attacking threat . In 2 games we had 3 shots on target with only 1 troubling the keeper Gibson's close range shot . If anything we are lucky to only be -8 in my opinion. Those 2 will will thrash lots of other sides this season but let's not kid ourselves that we deserved anything from these games or looked like scoring in either. Until we learn how to defend we will be on the end of many more unfortunate thrashings.
I agree that we didn't deserve anything from the two games. I was just comparing the psychological effects of 0-8 compared to 1-5 (and I think the latter would have reflected the two games just as fairly as the former). Also, I'd like to make clear that I wasn't knocking anyone on here. I was referring more to the PinkUn messageboard, where a sizeable minority are already getting very negative and aggressively dissing the club. Not to mention the so-called experts on TalkSport.
We have a few moaners on here me being one of the biggest lately after Robby the doom Goblin but I doubt any of us would be so short-sighted as to call for Delia Webber or Farke to go even if we go down again . I'm just bemused by our lack of recruitment in certain areas which I have repeated at nauseating regularity .
I also have a tendency to be negative (although I'm trying to fight it). This time, though, I'll stick by Farke whatever happens. He's already made me look a fool twice, so I'm not going for the hat-trick!
Thanks for for responding to my question about the off-sides, guys. I know the PL will not show VAR being used this season because they think there will be less controversy this way. I don't think keeping info from fans is the best thing to do, but there you go.
I think, rather than funding, the main problem is a shortage of fully qualified and properly trained assistants for the VAR. Think of the number of officials already needed for an EPL match to go ahead, then add in a VAR for every match plus whatever support he/she already needs, and then add maybe two (or even three) more "VAR assistants". For the Euros, UEFA could draw on the combined resources of all their European members.
