I must confess I was in favour of VAR but having seen it in action in Italy, Germany and now here I am against it. I still believe in an idealised version of VAR but it seems that there's no chance of it being implemented in the sparing fashion that I envision it. I'd want it to be something that the majority of games pass by without needing any reference to it. Its current usage is an emotional drain on the game.
That's largely the case in the current PL system, to a fault I think. Most games haven't had any real VAR interventions.
It's not in the games I've watched. City v West Ham we had Sterling given offside because his shirt sleeve was supposedly a cm ahead of the West Ham defender, we then had another long wait because he may have been offside but this time they decided that he wasn't, we then had Aguero get to retake a penalty for encroachment. There will have been other stoppages I've forgotten in that game alone; pretty certain a possible red card was checked for because Antonio caught Rodri in the face accidentally. City v Spurs we've had a last minute winner disallowed because of a new handball rule they've introduced purely to accommodate VAR a couple of minutes after it went in. We had another ridiculous possible red card check involving Rose in the first half. Then in today's game we had a long wait for Wolves first goal to be allowed to stand. It's stupid and unnecessary and ruining the experience for players and fans. You heard the Wolves stadium after Neves's goal. Imagine that getting ruled out because some guy sitting in front of a computer after two minutes of drawing lines and using some guesswork has decided someone was a millimetre ahead of the play.
Well it’s not guesswork is it, that’s the whole fecking point
You happen to have watched most of the games with major VAR incidents.
You're telling me that they can decide with 100% accuracy whether a player was offside or not?Well it’s not guesswork is it, that’s the whole fecking point
The fact that from the three televised games alone I've mentioned we've had numerous incidents hardly attests to your claim that it's used sparingly though, does it? This is only the televised games. I know Brighton had a goal disallowed the other day. I'm sure people who watched these games could bring up a few more instances of times where there was a needlessly long delay.
That’s how the sport’s worked for over 150 years without much issue. Odd that you can’t comprehend how people find the change annoying.
Genuinely baffled how any intelligent person is against fair play.
Theoretically, VAR should be solving this but from what I've seen it doesn't really.
VAR - solving none of the actual problems but creating completely new ones that nobody asked for since 2017.
It honestly seemed to be quite well done at Russia 2018. None of the really petty nonsense that we’ve seen since it arrived in the CL that I can remember. The only problem I had with it then was when the match ref bottled giving a clear red card to Cristiano despite the video evidence being conclusive.
I was all in for VAR and have wanted it for years but since it’s started being used in the CL I’m converted to the “luddite anti-VAR brigade”. It’s making a nonsense of the game.
Was thinking the same, but...
Yeah that was terrible. It would've been terrible before VAR, as it's a lino simply guessing at offside. But with VAR, it's infinitely worse. Fecking infuriating.
In the last 5mins or so of the game? I immediately said to my mate that the linesman should've let the play go on but our commentator said it was the right call and it certainly looked that way to me - his shoulder was offside when turning away from what I remember. Need to see it again to be sure though.
Don't remember what minute it was but on the replay it looked well onside to me. Not sure where to look for a decent replay now.
The commentators said it was the right call based on Martials shoulder being just ahead of his markers (though it was incredibly tight) . But the next defender along looked to be slightly further back and playing him on, but they didn't show it from a flat angle or draw a line so it was hard to be certain.
Oh sure, definitely agree on the bolded parts - he was basically on par with the defenders in any case so they definitely need to let the play go on with VAR being used now.
As expected, none of the highlights I found included the incident. The only thing I could find was The Guardian's min-by-min: "90 min Maguire slides a nice pass down the inside-left channel to find Martial, who is wrongly flagged offside." Seriously annoying, it was a promising attack and really not something you want taken from you when chasing a win in the 90th minute.
So fcking dumb that you think it can be improved. It’s been around for a while for starters & all it is is some other guy looking at a replay- you can’t quicken up or improve that
Of course it can be improved. Aside from technological improvements which could improve the speed of the 3D imaging required for some calls, aside from rule changes addressing issues with the handball/offside, aside from the people using the VAR tech becoming quicker and more comfortable with it through experience, they could simply settle on best practice for how it is used.
Considering how VAR now is worse and more intrusive than it was a year ago, I can easily see any further “improvements” being anything but.
Ball was played backwards so can't be offside.
This happened in the Chelsea game as well, Maddison was flagged offside and then the incident was just never shown again, so impossible to say if he was actually offside or not. Very odd decision by the broadcasters to just disappear the incident.
On last night's showing it's probably 10 years away from even being a net benefit. It may never be worth the delays.
Yeah, it's a little strange isn't it. Also, Martial was onside last night when Maguire played that lovely pass, it was a very good piece of play all-round. The linesman then wrongly flagged, and that was the end of it, no-one said anything about it. That's really, really poor. Ultimately where we're going is removing linesmen/women, especially if their wrong decisions are actually harming the game. There is no point a linesman/women putting their flag up if they're even slightly unsure, if they're wrong and put their flag up they negatively impact the game.
Which incident are you referring to? I don't remember seeing anything that could result in a straight sending off.
Wolves player went down on the halfway line at some point and they continued to attack, on replay James stood on his foot. To me it was very similar to these two reds, maybe James was a bit more on top of the boot and these were more on the ankle:
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Exact same thing happened against Chelsea. Flag went up for offside, ref called it, replay showed he (think it was Rashford) was onside. Nobody mentioned it cause we thrashed them anyway.
Any footage from our game? If it was anything like the Modric one, I'd be very surprised if I somehow missed it completely and haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else.
