true. I am so disappointed in its application as it should have been the last step in making the game fair but it has been bastardised to protect refs. I would strip it back to 2 reviews per game for each manager and be done with it. use them and lose them if wrong.
if greez won;t read back why should i? you could just say yeah i agree I said as much earlier rather than arguing with me first before saying that
nope no sly dig this is what i replied to the linesman didn't flag, the goal was given the ball was on the center circle to tip off. then the VAR played its game and villa were given a free on nothing but a guess/a deliberate act of malice. who knows which. how am i meant to know you meant flag after the goal from that .
I still think var used properly is fine. It works in cricket, rugby.. generally works ok in the CL. But you can have best tech in the world but if people using it are idiots and giving stupid decisions then you’re not gonna get the benefit of it.
One size doesn't necessarily fit all, though. I don't think it's fit for purpose in football. The technology is nowhere near precise enough for the fine margins expected of it.
I think issue is there not using it for clear and obvious. That was the remit. Those ones where player is 3 yards off and is missed. Ones where player clearly takes the ball but pen is given. but what they’ve tried to do is re-ref the games so every tiny decision is looked at and changed. you see in cricket, umpires decision is a thing. Even when ball is hitting stumps they say it’s not a clear error so go with umpire decision. Football needs to do similar. Unless it’s a massively clear error then just play on. the main problem is see is that var sends the ref over to monitor to check. That should never happen. Because it should be for obvious errors that the var ref is 100% sure a mistake is made and just corrects it themselves.
VAR is inconsistent in its decision intervention. Offsides seem to be all VAR, so much so that the Linesmen are barely flagging these days. Which in turn is becoming dangerous in that players play on a can lead to unnecessary injuries. Its also frustrating as its ruling out goals that can't possibly decided with the software they have, not to mention the ambiguity over where offside starts (an outstretched arm or Shirt sleave should never be used to determine offside). Personally I believe offside needs clariflication, imo it should be where your feet are (maybe head) as the game is called 'Foot'ball, it would certainly make the rule easier to judge. Then there is the monitor problem, either VAR is making the decisions on the fouls etc (like it is with offside) or the Ref is. The monitor has added another level of confusion. These are judgement calls, what you see in a slow-mo and what you see full speed is different, asking a ref to judge one then the other (cause some guy says so) isn't fair. Not to mention that is automatically implies the ref has got something wrong, when its just a personal judgement on an incident. VAR is neither one thing nor the other and the compromise they are trying to get between technology and the Refs isn't working
Good points, but I just don't like the tech at all. There were mistakes made by officials before, but they're still being made because ultimately most of them are subjective and all VAR is doing is moving the subjectivity upstairs. There's no discernible improvement in the decision making yet the whole flow of the game is being disrupted and the delays have radically altered the experience for fans, and I'm sure for the players as well. Even if more decisions were correct it wouldn't change the fact that the game has been significantly altered, and too much is being lost, for me at least. It wasn't perfect before, but it's even less so now. I agree that limiting its use to "clear and obvious" is the only real solution to finding a balance with it - but I'd be happy to see it scrapped. I can live with the occasional bad decision in order to have the game back.
Goalline technology works because it's absolute. Offside doesn't because a) It's only an approximation when the pass is struck, and b) Even then some **** can draw the lines skew-whiff like they did to Bobby at Villa last season, and the same dicktoss can draw the line at the elbow as they did with Mane at Goodison, and with Jota yesterday.
Offside needs to be absolute in what parts of the body are offside. Best way to do that would be Foot (leg) or Head as they are the clearest and easiest parts of the body to place and determine offside. The problem with adding things like the arm, shoulder, chest, nipples etc is that its hard to see what is offside and what counts as offside. Think we can all agree that with shoulder and chest there are problems with what is shirt and what is person, clothing bulges. And to add with arm, there seems to be no idea where offside starts with the arm, Bamford's elbow takes the biscuit of this, I mean what is offside and what would be counted as Handball.