VAR thread

[baitman]

I think basically it would work a lot better if the primary official was in the room giving the ref on the pitch advice to play on, stop play, issue a card / penalty, pick his nose etc. Shouldn't be up to the ref on the pitch to look at vid evidence.

That would be the best option to keep play flowing.
Play to the whistle should be instruction number one, with no players calling for var making little box shapes like pre school kids or or 80s ravers.

[Tatterdemalion]

That would be the best option to keep play flowing.
Play to the whistle should be instruction number one, with no players calling for var making little box shapes like pre school kids or or 80s ravers.

Yeh exactly. If they can't see the person making the decision to stop play or play on there's no chance of them having an impact on that front, even the person in the room will be too busy reviewing the evidence to see what they're up to.

[Exiled_red]

play should continue until a decision is made, and if its only used for glaring errors it should be ok. I think they had the balance right in the world cup, trigger happy VAR refs detract from the game rather than add to it.

As I understand it play is allowed to continue until the ball goes dead or play is stopped by the referee. Obviously the referee has to call on VAR to be used in order to overturn the decision of the linesman, which may or may not happen, but assuming it did in the case of the Fulham disallowed goal when the ball crosses the goal line the play is dead, so we cannot take the freekick to restart play and go down the other end to score because the play would be being reviewed.

As I understand the rules we wouldn't have been allowed the opportunity to break.

[Fosterbloke]

It's the spontaneity the puts football above other team sports for me.

[Exiled_red]

I noticed sky bringing up VAR with regards to Salah's first goal today, technically yes it was offside but by the narrowest of margins. I'm not just saying this because we benefited from it but I don't want goals being ruled out for such marginal calls, if you have to pause the film and draw lines across the screen and can still barely tell you can't be ruling it out. If the player is clearly offside and the linesman has missed it, then absolutely rule out the goal, but if it's that tight it needs to be the linesman's call stands. Otherwise we will completely ruin the game.

[EwarWoo]

I disagree. If you can easily tell or barely tell you can still tell.

It's one thing if you can't be certain, then sure lino's call, but if you can tell you can tell.

[Red_Polo]

I disagree. If you can easily tell or barely tell you can still tell.

It's one thing if you can't be certain, then sure lino's call, but if you can tell you can tell.

It was pretty clearly off. I agree if it's ambiguous it should favour the attacking team, but it rarely is in the case of offside and having some sort of 'let the marginal offsides stand' guidance is just adding arbitrary subjective nonsense into the rules which would only lead to confusion and inconsistency.

[Exiled_red]

I'm not sure the way to deal with this but I'm sorry I just don't like the idea of it. The original VAR brief was to correct the clear and obvious mistakes which I think makes sense. To determine that was offside you needed slow motion, a single frame of footage and a line across the screen so in my opinion it can't havery been clear and obviously wrong.

This is the danger with VAR that every decision is going to be reviewed the game is going to become a mess. If these types of decision are going to be reviewable, the linesmen are going to give less offside decisions because if they are wrong and play has been stopped that chance has gone, because if they don't do that VAR will only disallow goals that had been allowed and won't be able to give goals that were wrongly given offside, in that situation only the defending team benefits.

Also there is almost no point in the linesman being there for any tight calls because all wold end up being reviewed I feel like there needs to be a 'linesman's call' for decisions so tight. Or that the officials should only be allowed to review it at full speed because if you can't tell seeing it again at full speed it isn't clear and obvious.

I didn't like it in the world cup when a ball hitting a hand was reviewed in slow motion and given as a penalty, when it was ball to hand.

I think there needs to be alot more thought about VAR and how it should be applied.

[EwarWoo]

I thought our first goal last night was clear and obviously offside to be honest. It may not have been a mile off, but it was clearly off.

And if you're not going to allow slow motion and aids to enable better detection then there's not much point in it anyway.

[dom9]

I noticed sky bringing up VAR with regards to Salah's first goal today, technically yes it was offside but by the narrowest of margins. I'm not just saying this because we benefited from it but I don't want goals being ruled out for such marginal calls, if you have to pause the film and draw lines across the screen and can still barely tell you can't be ruling it out. If the player is clearly offside and the linesman has missed it, then absolutely rule out the goal, but if it's that tight it needs to be the linesman's call stands. Otherwise we will completely ruin the game.

The whole point is to ensure that the correct decision is made whenever it's used. Otherwise what's the point?

In offside cases, however close to it is, it's always going to be a black and white decision. An open or shut case. You're either on or off.

Penalties will still be argued over at times because what constitutes a foul is still a subjective decision.

But for offside, nope. Has to be 100% every single time.

[Exiled_red]

That's the image from sky, assuming they have picked the exact frame Firmino kicks the ball and the line is in the right place; from that single frame and with the line superimposed, Salah is the width of a knee or the width of his boot offside, so what 3 or 4 inches offside? If this is what it takes to tell I don't think that you can say that is assistant's decision is "clearly" wrong, which is supposed to be what VAR was about.

The other side is you want to get big decisions correct, fair enough you used whatever technology is available to get the decision correct and rule the goal out, but what is the cost to the game? It seems that offsides are easy to change, but you also need to give equal weighting to other decisions, potential fouls in the build up would have an equal impact are those going to be reviewed too or do you allow the referee to use his judgement and accept that the game is going to have some subjective decisions, but that the assistants calls have to be perfect? For me there is an inconsistency in that

[Kenneth]

I don't understand how Salah is 'active' at that point.

[Exiled_red]

I don't understand how Salah is 'active' at that point.

He's not active at that point, but he is in an offside position (this would have no effect if Firmino's shot went directly in or if another LFC player put the rebound in). But as he is in an offside position there, when the ball comes back to him off the keeper he is deemed to be offside because he gained an advantage from being in that position. (As I understand the rule...)

[peterbread]

Look at the VAR in the A League and what people think of it. They can’t do it right here and it just ruins games too much

[Exiled_red]

Look at the VAR in the A League and what people think of it. They can’t do it right here and it just ruins games too much

In what way? (I don't follow the A league at all).

I like the idea of all the decisions being perfect but that is an idealistic position which will never happen because it is completely impractical. There are going to have to be some compromises, and that involves limiting VAR's use or it only being applied in certain circumstances. Where I have seen it applied (trials in the League cup in England, and the World Cup) I haven't been happy with it's use and some of the results (soft penalty awards)