Was that penalty for Wolves the worst refereeing decision of all time?

[El Jefe]

It would barely crack the top 100. Dramatic OP.

 

[always_hoping]

Poor one but the worst ever? Liverpool seem to get those decisions in favour of them regularly.

 

[thisisnottaken1]

100%. That was disturbing to watch, no idea how there could be any chance of allowing it to happen.

Agreed. Should have gotten a red card at minimum, nowhere near the ball.

 

[Red in STL]

You see just as bad a few times a week.

The issue is how VAR works. VAR is there to overturn howlers or massive cock ups. We have this stupid idea that referees should still have agency and be free to make bad decisions as long as they are not comically bad.

Yesterday, as soon as a penalty is given the referee should be invited to go to the pitchside monitor and check his decision. I am almost certain that if he had done that, he would have reversed the decision. As it was, VAR looked at it, said "yep, were almost certain there was contact so you can stick with your decision. If the ref had ignored it there isn't a popsicles chance he was being told to go look at it by VAR. How can anyone think thats a sensible system.

There needs to be a process whereby the ref goes to the monitor without the implication that his decision was wrong which is what happens now.

In the Liverpool game there were 2 far far better penalty shouts but VAR does nothing because the ref doesn't give them. Again, if the ref gave either of them VAR wouldn't have looked at them more than twice before saying "yep, penalty".

The idea of VAR is to reduce mistakes. Penalties when given incorrectly are massive mistakes. It could easily have cost us 2 points or more yesterday. Why they are leaving them to some broken system instead of treating them as some of the most important decisions in the match.

Imagine if we did offside like this. "Well he was offside but the linesman didn't give it and he was only 6 inches offside so lets just stick with the on field decision".

This is common sense but VAR is not allowed to do that in these instances, as some have said already, you can understand the refs decision in real time, I thought Casemiro had caught him but in reality he barely touched him, once the ref gives it unless it's obvious Casemiro doesn't touch him at all, which it isn't, then VAR can't do anything than confirm the decision, IMO the VAR rule is the biggest issue here, VAR should have the ability to say to the ref, go and look at it again

 

[Dike_Manc]

I feel like most, if not all teams get calls go for or against them in equal (or thereabouts) measure. Whereas, we are really up against it every game. Ten Hag must be so frustrated with it and you can't bring it up because then you're making excuses.
I wouldn't go as far as saying it's a conspiracy but no one will convince me that there's nothing there.
I mean, 9 minutes of stoppage time at the end of that game? I wonder how much it would have been if we were chasing the game. 4 minutes at most.

 

[JJ12]

The Roy Carroll 'save' is my favourite bad decision of all time pre VAR

 

[Sunny Jim]

10.05

Is the correct answer.

who is offside here?

 

[Bubz27]

Loads of outrage and coverage about that penalty today not.

 

[Red in STL]

The Roy Carroll 'save' is my favourite bad decision of all time pre VAR

Maradona's 'hand of god' is my top one

 

[Wilt]

100%. That was disturbing to watch, no idea how there could be any chance of allowing it to happen.

It was disturbing, can’t think of a more dangerous incident. Keane attack on Haaland was toytown compared to that.

Yellow, what the hell was the ref thinking?

 

[Hugh Jass]

Hyperbole a bit.

 

[FootballHQ]

It was disturbing, can’t think of a more dangerous incident. Keane attack on Haaland was toytown compared to that.

Yellow, what the hell was the ref thinking?

Ben Thatcher had previous, image is of him doing exactly the same elbow action v Sunderland in 2000 and he wasn't even booked for that IIRC (FA charged him again afterwards).

 

[mctrials23]

This is common sense but VAR is not allowed to do that in these instances, as some have said already, you can understand the refs decision in real time, I thought Casemiro had caught him but in reality he barely touched him, once the ref gives it unless it's obvious Casemiro doesn't touch him at all, which it isn't, then VAR can't do anything than confirm the decision, IMO the VAR rule is the biggest issue here, VAR should have the ability to say to the ref, go and look at it again

Well yes, that was my point. VAR needs to change the way it works. It needs to put far more power back into the hands of the referee and give him the tools to make the best decision. Currently, their mistakes are ignored by VAR unless they are huge and then sometimes they just decide something should be looked at by the ref and essentially say to him. "We've poured over this for 5 minutes, go look at the monitor and change your decision".

It shouldn't work like that. The ref should be making 95% of the decisions and the pitchside monitor should be used far more often and with no implications from the VAR boys upstairs. He should give the penalty, go check it on the monitor and talk to VAR while he does it. He can ask them questions if needs be. "Are you sure there was contact?" etc.

I'm pretty sure that most of the decisions he needs to make can be done entirely on his own with the ability to just look at the replays and rewind, zoom etc. If that system was in place, Chelsea would have had 2 more penalties against Liverpool and Wolves would have one less. VAR would say to the ref "Gallagher is contacted, please check you are happy with the level of contact". Ref goes to the monitor and looks and if hes happy then play goes on. If he isn't, penalty. The issue is VAR not getting involved when it should and getting too involved and directing decisions when it shouldn't.

 

[Withnail]

This is common sense but VAR is not allowed to do that in these instances, as some have said already, you can understand the refs decision in real time, I thought Casemiro had caught him but in reality he barely touched him, once the ref gives it unless it's obvious Casemiro doesn't touch him at all, which it isn't, then VAR can't do anything than confirm the decision, IMO the VAR rule is the biggest issue here, VAR should have the ability to say to the ref, go and look at it again

Well yes, that was my point. VAR needs to change the way it works. It needs to put far more power back into the hands of the referee and give him the tools to make the best decision. Currently, their mistakes are ignored by VAR unless they are huge and then sometimes they just decide something should be looked at by the ref and essentially say to him. "We've poured over this for 5 minutes, go look at the monitor and change your decision".

It shouldn't work like that. The ref should be making 95% of the decisions and the pitchside monitor should be used far more often and with no implications from the VAR boys upstairs. He should give the penalty, go check it on the monitor and talk to VAR while he does it. He can ask them questions if needs be. "Are you sure there was contact?" etc.

I'm pretty sure that most of the decisions he needs to make can be done entirely on his own with the ability to just look at the replays and rewind, zoom etc. If that system was in place, Chelsea would have had 2 more penalties against Liverpool and Wolves would have one less. VAR would say to the ref "Gallagher is contacted, please check you are happy with the level of contact". Ref goes to the monitor and looks and if hes happy then play goes on. If he isn't, penalty. The issue is VAR not getting involved when it should and getting too involved and directing decisions when it shouldn't.

Lads, it's just not true that the VAR can't intervene. They can and, according to Howard Webb, they should be directed the ref to the monitor if the contact is minimal.

The following is from an article in Nov:

Video assistant referees in England have been urged to speak out on “soft” penalties, by encouraging on-pitch officials to review their decision even if an error is not “clear and obvious”. The new advice from the referees’ chief, Howard Webb, follows a succession of controversial penalty incidents in the Premier League and Europe.

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...-var-advice-penalties-referees-premier-league

 

[mctrials23]

Lads, it's just not true that the VAR can't intervene. They can and, according to Howard Webb, they should be directed the ref to the monitor if the contact is minimal.

They are clearly ignoring this then because they are ignoring soft as hell penalties and ignoring far more serious ones that should be looked at again by the ref. This is the frustrating thing. I think VAR is a good thing generally. Offside mistakes are almost eliminated and it does catch quite a few mistakes. It should however be miles better than it is and its not the technology holding it back, its the idiots running it.

 

[Withnail]

They are clearly ignoring this then because they are ignoring soft as hell penalties and ignoring far more serious ones that should be looked at again by the ref. This is the frustrating thing. I think VAR is a good thing generally. Offside mistakes are almost eliminated and it does catch quite a few mistakes. It should however be miles better than it is and its not the technology holding it back, its the idiots running it.

Well yes exactly. The other issue is they're always coming out and making these kind of directives after a high profile incident and then quietly going back to the same old crap.

Webb said this in November after there was a big hoo-haa after a penalty incident but there's no follow through. It's like each August when they say they'll clamp down on something or other, dish out loads of yellows in the first few games and then forget about it by Xmas. It's just a scatter-gun, reactive approach which is one of the reasons we have the inconsistency.