Premier League 2019-20 Assignments and Discussion [Rs]

Why mandatory? It was late and careless. You could argue enough force to be reckless. But it wasn’t so bad that it absolutely had to be given.

 

That wasn’t my intended point. I was simply suggesting incompetent VARing leading to an unfair non-application of black and white rule.

 

Showing the video I’ve already seen isn’t an answer to the question.

The defender mistimes a tackle in the penalty area. He tucks his legs at the end and does everything possible to mitigate force and/or not foul, if possible. The totality of actions illustrate he was careless.

You can argue that, due to momentum the force was so high that a referee would be within his rights to deem this reckless. That’s fine. But arguing that a caution here is “mandatory” is wrong.

And if you feel strongly that I’m wrong about this being careless, you should be able to articulate why because that’s what, for example, a National Coach would be asking you if you give a caution here. A yellow wouldn’t be wrong, but you’d have explain your decision. And saying “mandatory” is the wrong answer.

 

Reckless is when a player acts with disregard to the danger or consequences of his opponent. Again, the totality of actions clearly show he WAS regarding the danger and consequences. Again, a yellow is okay. But arguing “mandatory” is going to lead you into trouble. And I’d conclude by saying absolutely no one of authority or import in the professional game would deem Atkinson “wrong” for not giving a caution.

Is your implication that Winks should have been sent off here?

What was the restart?

If Winks didn’t get called for a foul and this was Spurs’ throw, then Sokratis deliberately held the ball and held his opponent in a pretty provocative manner. He would know his opponent is on a yellow. He would be trying to get his opponent sent off. If you want to argue that Winks did enough to make a second caution unavoidable, again, that’s a legitimate argument to make. But just make sure you don’t get sucked in on these sort of situations and reward a player for acting in a way to get his opponent sent off when the “misconduct” is relatively minor.

If Sokratis won the foul and it was his restart, I’m slightly more sympathetic to your apparent implication. Still don’t think two yellows are necessary here (in fact, I’d suggest a referee could manage with none in certain contexts).

 

"Ensured... correct decision."

It doesn't say that there were six corrections.

I admittedly haven't seen all games from the first four weeks, but we had the handball call with City/Spurs and what else? We know there have been no penalty or red card interventions. Have there actually been five instances where VAR either took away or awarded a goal, reversing the on-field decision? I don't think there have been--I think I can recall one or two. If I'm correct, the "ensured... correct decision" metric is counting a few instances where VAR confirmed a few decisions. It's also likely counting Atkinson's rogue use on a goalkeeper foul.

I am surprised they've admitted they missed two penalties and a red card.

Not surprised they publicly said the Watford-Newcastle call was blown. It's going to be very interesting if that affects promotion/relegation. Because with a league authority admitting publicly that a "process error" might be the difference in hundreds of millions of pounds... well, I can envisage the scenario where a club might at least try to make a legal case. Probably wouldn't go anywhere, but the publicity wouldn't be good.

 

To be fair, the 4 times cited were about failures to intervene. VAR didn't change a correct call to an incorrect one. It just failed to properly function and arrive at the correct eventuality.

Similarly, as I write above, I think the suggestion that six calls were corrected to the right call is an exaggeration. I think the actual number where VAR changed an incorrect call to a correct one might be more like 3 or 4.

So instead of asking "what's the point?" A better question might be, "how can you train for nearly two years and be this incompetent out of the gate?" The EPL is essentially saying there were around 8 opportunities where VAR was expected to intervene and it only did so in about 4 (one which was a handball to deny a goal and the others which were very marginal offside decisions). No matter what way you slice it, unless you're a Spurs fan there's really been no value add to the league from VAR so far.

 

The Zouma disallowed goal is the Atkinson decision where he never awarded the goal. So that’s one that’s a flat-out lie.

I’d like to go back and look at the others to see the procedures.

 

I wonder how quickly we'll see Gillett with a whistle.

 

Thinking about it a bit more... there are essentially 10 incidents we're talking about where VAR came into play or definitely should have come into play.

If these were the pre-VAR days, there would have been four instances where fans likely would have said "why don't we have VAR?!". That's incident #5 above (and even that's a stretch, because the offside was somewhat complicated and very hard to discern) plus the two penalties and one SFP that Riley points out.

So you have four instances of what could have been clear and good VAR interventions... and only one happened. We have a 25% success rate on the most egregious of correctable VAR incidents that people would have cared about last year.

You then have three potential usages related to the new handball rule, with only 67% accuracy.

Then one botched VAR play that Riley is implying was a success (Atkinson).

And two VAR interventions that are technically correct, but definitely fall in the category of "no one would call clearly wrong" (#1 and #2 in your list).

You can then add in a couple clear DOGSOs that referees and VARs missed and Riley isn't copping to because apparently DOGSO isn't going to be somewhere VARs intervene.

Things aren't good and this is not going well. But there aren't any OFRs and time isn't being lost, so everyone will pretend like things are going well, I guess!

 

I don't think that's the end game at all. England just wants to do it differently and, in their eyes, better.

VAR is never going away. At least not until something else replaces it.

 

I was originally presuming the 2020-21 season—late. Then a full promotion for 2021-2022. He’s young and never underestimate the concept of “paying your dues.” England immediately accepting a foreign FIFA into the EPL would not be on brand.

But I also thought we’d only see him as a VAR in the EPL this year. Seeing him as a FO already makes me think there could be an opening. You’ve probably identified the right window if it’s going to happen. But I’m still skeptical it happens this season.