VAR appalling yet again: Liverpool - Spurs

[Scrote]

Half the problem is the players don’t know the rules, not to the letter anyway, but any ex player on a var panel would obviously do a course. Nobody is saying they should be ref, but the brighter ones could handle var easily.

A ref will never likely understand though, even most fans couldn’t, for a lot of decisions.

Like fouls as one example. They refs just don’t get what minor contact at high speed can do, even if players don’t go down it’s still a foul. These don’t get given as fouls though, so then players have to make the most of it, and then from that comes diving and people trailing a foot to get fouled etc. It’s like a snowball effect.

It’s all caused by an understanding of the rules, and thinking this is an understand of the game, and it isn’t.

FIFA/ the FA don't help the refs though either. Its 2023, why are players and managers still getting in the refs face? In any other sport if you do that you end up in the stands. Protect the refs and var better, and they’ll make better decisions.

VAR still gets a lot more right than wrong, but it should be 99% correct, and never used as a bailout.

VAR shouldn’t be used for offsides how it is either, if they think they need to get the lines out, and can’t decide without them, then stick with the original decision.

It's not about the players not knowing the rules. It's about two ex-players seeing Skipps challenge as a potential leg-breaker and the ref saying that the lack of malice and the fact it was a follow through after playing the ball, negate that. The rules cover it as "playing in a dangerous manner". Winning the ball doesn't exempt you from that and neither does lack of malice. Some things are just dangerous.

It's also not about after the fact injury, but an after the fact injury can indicate that the manner of play was dangerous (not always but usually).

I fully agree about players/managers in refs faces and that is easily dealt with but for some reason the powers that be have decided not to - they've had decades to sort it out.

VAR stats are difficult to prove becuase they can only show what they gone correct when they intervened. They never go through a game and highlight all the areas VAR should have intervened but didn't. There are no false positives but having watched an awful lot of footy I'd be surprised if there weren't as many incorrect calls now as there have ever been. Just getting one or two big ones right isn't worth the rest of the rigmarole that comes with VAR.

They should either use it for everything or not at all, in my opinion. Encroaching, foul throws, correct decisions on who touched it last before going out etc. With the FA etc. wanting to keep refs as the focal point of decision-making you just end up with this half-way house where we seem to have as many apologies for big decisions being called wrong as we have obviously bad decisions being overturned.

VAR is awful. End the failed experiment. Give us back our football (before we get promoted (hopefully)).

 

[Nano]

High foot rule needs to be enforced better or looked at. Just needs an outright ban imo, if players in vicinity.

How can a player not instantly get a red card for feet at waist - head height, and yet if someone slide tackles with their foot 100mm off the deck then everyone has a meltdown.

High feet are far more dangerous than arms, and I’d rather be slapped or probably even punched than have someone potentially booting me in the face.

There's nothing wrong with the high foot rule. Jota put his foot up to win the ball, and won it. Skipp put his head in and that caused the injury. If he had put his foot in instead them there wouldn't have even been a foul. You can't outright ban it because all you are doing is adding subjectivity around whether a player is in the vicinity or not. It would also completely eliminate the overhead kick.

It's a contact sport and sometimes injuries happen when players challenge for a ball they are allowed to challenge for.

I really don't understand how anyone can watch our matches in the championship every week and see the game defining decisions called incorrectly every single week and not see the benefit of VAR.

 

[TeaCider]

There's nothing wrong with the high foot rule. Jota put his foot up to win the ball, and won it. Skipp put his head in and that caused the injury. If he had put his foot in instead them there wouldn't have even been a foul. You can't outright ban it because all you are doing is adding subjectivity around whether a player is in the vicinity or not. It would also completely eliminate the overhead kick.

It's a contact sport and sometimes injuries happen when players challenge for a ball they are allowed to challenge for.

I really don't understand how anyone can watch our matches in the championship every week and see the game defining decisions called incorrectly every single week and not see the benefit of VAR.

I can't believe you're actually trying to defend it.

Skipp was already moving towards the ball with his head before Jota's boot had even lifted off the grass. Jota then kicked him full force in the head.

It was an absolute stonewall red card.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1652989660585504768

If Dermot Gallagher is going against the ref, you know it's the wrong decision.

 

[Nano]

I can't believe you're actually trying to defend it.

Skipp was already moving towards the ball with his head before Jota's boot had even lifted off the grass. Jota then kicked him full force in the head.

It was an absolute stonewall red card.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1652989660585504768

If Dermot Gallagher is going against the ref, you know it's the wrong decision.

I've mentioned why I can see why it wasn't given. I think it probably should be a red but the way VAR works means the process was probably correct.

I don't think he has kicked him full force in the head at all though. He's raised his foot to nick the ball away, that's very different. His other foot is standing, he's at full stretch. There is very little force in that action. I've played football myself hundreds of times and putting your foot in where you think you can get to the ball first and trying to injure someone are very different things.

My comment was more on the high foot rule in general. I wouldn't want every high foot challenge to be an instant red card.

 

[Scrote]

There's nothing wrong with the high foot rule. Jota put his foot up to win the ball, and won it. Skipp put his head in and that caused the injury. If he had put his foot in instead them there wouldn't have even been a foul. You can't outright ban it because all you are doing is adding subjectivity around whether a player is in the vicinity or not. It would also completely eliminate the overhead kick.

It's a contact sport and sometimes injuries happen when players challenge for a ball they are allowed to challenge for.

I really don't understand how anyone can watch our matches in the championship every week and see the game defining decisions called incorrectly every single week and not see the benefit of VAR.

"A scissors or bicycle kick is permissible provided that it is not dangerous to an opponent."

It's not often you see blood drawn from a high foot. By definition it was dangerous and covered by Law 12. It's Jota's responsibility not to harm his opponent.

The problem of poor officiating isn't solved by adding another layer of poor officiating. VAR has been poor from day one. Either improve it's use or bin it. Don't use inept refereeing as an excuse to bring in VAR. It's like the Tories deliberately messing up the NHS so they can say it needs privatisation.

 

[Mickey_2003]

"A scissors or bicycle kick is permissible provided that it is not dangerous to an opponent."

It's not often you see blood drawn from a high foot. By definition it was dangerous and covered by Law 12. It's Jota's responsibility not to harm his opponent.

The problem of poor officiating isn't solved by adding another layer of poor officiating. VAR has been poor from day one. Either improve it's use or bin it. Don't use inept refereeing as an excuse to bring in VAR. It's like the Tories deliberately messing up the NHS so they can say it needs privatisation.

Didn’t we get a free kick given against us years ago for someone (possibly Job) doing an overhead kick, but an opposition player being close by?

 

[Scrote]

Didn’t we get a free kick given against us years ago for someone (possibly Job) doing an overhead kick, but an opposition player being close by?

Yeah. I've a feeling it was Albert Adomah. Disallowed goal and didn't even make contact with the opposition. Just seen as dangerous play.

 

[RedAsABeetroot]

Half the problem is the players don’t know the rules, not to the letter anyway, but any ex player on a var panel would obviously do a course. Nobody is saying they should be ref, but the brighter ones could handle var easily.

A ref will never likely understand though, even most fans couldn’t, for a lot of decisions.

Like fouls as one example. They refs just don’t get what minor contact at high speed can do, even if players don’t go down it’s still a foul. These don’t get given as fouls though, so then players have to make the most of it, and then from that comes diving and people trailing a foot to get fouled etc. It’s like a snowball effect.

It’s all caused by an understanding of the rules, and thinking this is an understand of the game, and it isn’t.

FIFA/ the FA don't help the refs though either. Its 2023, why are players and managers still getting in the refs face? In any other sport if you do that you end up in the stands. Protect the refs and var better, and they’ll make better decisions.

VAR still gets a lot more right than wrong, but it should be 99% correct, and never used as a bailout.

VAR shouldn’t be used for offsides how it is either, if they think they need to get the lines out, and can’t decide without them, then stick with the original decision.

What decision? The flag stays down if it's less than 3 yards offside and so VAR has to get involved.

 

[Scrote]

What decision? The flag stays down if it's less than 3 yards offside and so VAR has to get involved.

Yeah. For goals they check regardless so the point is moot. If a goal isn't scored (or penalty given) then it doesn't really matter if someone was actually offside by a fraction.

As soon as they check then they have to get the lines out if necessary because offside is black and white. You either are or you aren't there is no room for debate (even if people then get shirty about where the lines are). If you don't trust the technology then bin it. If you don't trust the operators then bin it.

If you need to change the laws of the game for VAR then how do you keep one set of rules for both VAR and Not VAR? That's the problem that football has and it won't go away without some proper thought going into it. Carrick's point, after the Luton game, was that a ref who is used to having VAR shouldn't then be reffing games without. It's become two different sets of rules already in some respects.

 

[Andy_W]

It's not about the players not knowing the rules. It's about two ex-players seeing Skipps challenge as a potential leg-breaker and the ref saying that the lack of malice and the fact it was a follow through after playing the ball, negate that. The rules cover it as "playing in a dangerous manner". Winning the ball doesn't exempt you from that and neither does lack of malice. Some things are just dangerous.

It's also not about after the fact injury, but an after the fact injury can indicate that the manner of play was dangerous (not always but usually).

I fully agree about players/managers in refs faces and that is easily dealt with but for some reason the powers that be have decided not to - they've had decades to sort it out.

VAR stats are difficult to prove becuase they can only show what they gone correct when they intervened. They never go through a game and highlight all the areas VAR should have intervened but didn't. There are no false positives but having watched an awful lot of footy I'd be surprised if there weren't as many incorrect calls now as there have ever been. Just getting one or two big ones right isn't worth the rest of the rigmarole that comes with VAR.

They should either use it for everything or not at all, in my opinion. Encroaching, foul throws, correct decisions on who touched it last before going out etc. With the FA etc. wanting to keep refs as the focal point of decision-making you just end up with this half-way house where we seem to have as many apologies for big decisions being called wrong as we have obviously bad decisions being overturned.

VAR is awful. End the failed experiment. Give us back our football (before we get promoted (hopefully)).

Yeah, I wasn't on about particular incidents, about the rules thing, some of those were quite clear cut. Totally agree, winning the ball or what happens after that if dangerous, is still dangerous. If you can't tackle safely or in control, then the ball is not there to be won. The Skipp one wasn't as bad as the high foot mind, that's closer to a yellow for me, but could have been a red. I think what saved Skipp there was that Diaz had let the ball get away from him a bit.

Yeah, if someone's head gets gashed open, or they're drawing blood down the back of the leg etc, then that points a lot of fingers in the red direction.

There is a lot let howlers now, I bet it's cut them by 90%, but the problem it has is the 10% it gets wrong are talked bout by 10x, which makes it seem worse than it is.

Clear wrong decision offsides, goals in doubt, red/ yellow cards, people getting in refs faces and dives, that would cover enough for me. The main things which matter, the ref influencing and also the cheating, just cover those.

 

[Andy_W]

There's nothing wrong with the high foot rule. Jota put his foot up to win the ball, and won it. Skipp put his head in and that caused the injury. If he had put his foot in instead them there wouldn't have even been a foul. You can't outright ban it because all you are doing is adding subjectivity around whether a player is in the vicinity or not. It would also completely eliminate the overhead kick.

It's a contact sport and sometimes injuries happen when players challenge for a ball they are allowed to challenge for.

I really don't understand how anyone can watch our matches in the championship every week and see the game defining decisions called incorrectly every single week and not see the benefit of VAR.

His foot shouldn't be there, it's dangerous. There's a reason the game has headers, and Skipp's head was head height, the natural position, Jota's foot wasn't. Going for a header there is what 99% of players would do, as it's the right thing, Jota's in the 1%, it's wrong (or should be).
If they had both put their feet up that high (head high) it would have both been dangerous, and they could both be sent off. Vicinity is easy, close enough to do damage, a yard or two.

There's like probably one overhead kick goal per season in the prem, 50% of those are not that close to other players, and the other 50% are only scored as players don't want their face to be kicked off. If players want to go for an overhead kick goal they can, a good option if they're aware that they're not going to kick someone's face off. If they do it around other players, and they get it wrong, it should be a sending off.

You can't have rules which penalise a slightly high-foot tackle, when there are a 100 similar tackle situations per game, and then let a high foot go, which is unnecessary and high risk, and much higher risk per occasion.

There is a big benefit to VAR, I'm certainly for it, but it should be a lot better. Something can still "work" and yet be performing poorly.

 

[Scrote]

Yeah, I wasn't on about particular incidents, about the rules thing, some of those were quite clear cut. Totally agree, winning the ball or what happens after that if dangerous, is still dangerous. If you can't tackle safely or in control, then the ball is not there to be won. The Skipp one wasn't as bad as the high foot mind, that's closer to a yellow for me, but could have been a red. I think what saved Skipp there was that Diaz had let the ball get away from him a bit.

Yeah, if someone's head gets gashed open, or they're drawing blood down the back of the leg etc, then that points a lot of fingers in the red direction.

There is a lot let howlers now, I bet it's cut them by 90%, but the problem it has is the 10% it gets wrong are talked bout by 10x, which makes it seem worse than it is.

Clear wrong decision offsides, goals in doubt, red/ yellow cards, people getting in refs faces and dives, that would cover enough for me. The main things which matter, the ref influencing and also the cheating, just cover those.

Goals are covered by goal-line technology.

Dissent and dives are covered and VAR doesn't get involved with those anyway. Retrospective panels can and should be used if the FA wants to send a serious message.

How many howlers were there per season prior to VAR? I don't remember referees having to apologise multiple times over a single weekend for getting things terribly wrong. VAR hasn't improved the overall matchday experience. It's just moved the goal-posts slightly and now we have a whole new set of problems.

It's no better now than it was before so get rid until they can work out how to implement something like cricket or rugby (mic up the refs would be a huge start).

 

[ForssAwakens]

I can't believe you're actually trying to defend it.

Skipp was already moving towards the ball with his head before Jota's boot had even lifted off the grass. Jota then kicked him full force in the head.

It was an absolute stonewall red card.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1652989660585504768

If Dermot Gallagher is going against the ref, you know it's the wrong decision.

Dermot gallahger thinks it’s a red card but gives justification around the referees decision of a yellow card.

 

[Andy_W]

Goals are covered by goal-line technology.

Dissent and dives are covered and VAR doesn't get involved with those anyway. Retrospective panels can and should be used if the FA wants to send a serious message.

How many howlers were there per season prior to VAR? I don't remember referees having to apologise multiple times over a single weekend for getting things terribly wrong. VAR hasn't improved the overall matchday experience. It's just moved the goal-posts slightly and now we have a whole new set of problems.

It's no better now than it was before so get rid until they can work out how to implement something like cricket or rugby (mic up the refs would be a huge start).

I mean the lead up to goals, what happens in the same phase etc, not just the goal.

Dissent isn't covered, as the refs don't cover it (other sports cover it extremely well), and neither do retrospective panels, as they're all too weak, which is why VAR may need to. Sames as dives, can be hard to see for the ref, and often when a player dives they just don't give the pen and think "no pen given, that's fair", it's not fair, a guy has still tried to cheat, and next time he might get away with it. Make sure there isn't a next time.

Loads more howlers before VAR, but like I keep saying, I'm all for VAR, but it could be a lot better. The matchday experience hasn't got any worse for me, as a TV viewer and us being in the champo, and it wouldn't if it was in the stadium either or we're in prem, you win some lose some, overlal the feeling ends up roughly the same. I could take a goal being chalked off as it wasn't a goal quite easily, but the feeling of being robbed of a genuine goal is worse. Having a dodgy goal given is a bit shallow too, if it's one that matters. But regardless, correct decisions are more important when so much is on the line.

 

[Muttley]

Ah, "phase" another nonsense used to validate the use or non-use of VAR. Like linos not flagging unless they are yards off, handballs that aren't or are that weren't. In the words of us the great unwashed

YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING.

 

[Andy_W]

Ah, "phase" another nonsense used to validate the use or non-use of VAR. Like linos not flagging unless they are yards off, handballs that aren't or are that weren't.

Phases are important, but I suppose how that's defined is even more important.

If a phase is just when the ball enters the final third, and only one team has had possession then this won't work very well. The same as going back 5 minutes when each team has had possession three times each.

But if a phase is from when a team takes possession of the ball then it would be a hell of a lot more accurate, and anything else before that would be largely insignificant, probably <0.1% impact over the course of a season.

Refs and VAR panels just need to be stronger, but they also need to be better protected. If the refs were protected better, then they would probably make better decisions from the outset, and then this makes VAR simpler.

For VAR, for now, just cut the ambiguity, if it's millimetres forget it, close enough for now, move on, but above all explain the decisions/ discussion in real-time, and have a panel which votes. The same panel could probably cover five games at the same time.

It probably won't be long before supervised AI, and then not much later full AI could even take over the role of a ref, and then VAR wouldn't even be needed, it would just end up 99% correct decisions in real-time, and zero chance of any bias or perceived bias.