Not about to disagree with Keith Hackett! A few points, however. I thought the declared team(s) was already in place which is eminently sensible. Seems like it was, but hasn’t been for a while. Poor. At the same time, Atwell hasn’t reffed a Luton game this season. Can’t be arsed to delve to see if he’s been a lineo, 4th official or in the VAR booth for any Luton games. Suspect not. I still think a draw was the best result for Luton between Forest and Everton was a draw, so therefore if he was letting his Luton biases show, he should have intervened on behalf of Forest when they were behind. He didn’t and he pointedly didn’t to the level of incompetence. I’m firmly in the incompetent corner here (pun not really intended!). I don’t think he was trying to illegally tip the scales; I do think he was incompetent however. Listening to the clip above, it would appear he was afraid to challenge a senior ref and that in and of itself is a huge indictment of the entire VAR process. He’d rather be wrong and save face and a bollocking rather than not be able to go for a pint with the boys. If that’s how VAR is working, it’s in very serious need of a complete overhaul.
the only way to start to "fix" the officiating mess is to assign VAR duties to refs from other countries. it's all remote so no reason it wouldn't work, none at all. that would remove one layer of perceived bias from the debates. once that's settled in, go all out - only use non-UK refs/officials for all games. yes it'd cost (I suspect the PL can afford it) and would introduce logistical problems all around .... but why not try it? eg pick a matchday and send UK refs to manage games in (say) Germany and have German refs work PL games. I'd vote for that in a heartbeat. and surely PGMOL would be happy to (a) get the stink of perceived bias removed and (b) maybe prove to PL fans that European refs are just as crap as UK refs?
How dare you, Sir!!!!! I shall have you know my duelling gloves have just come back from the dry cleaners.
I'm all for it. Quick and impartial. Even if it turns out to have flaws, the flaws will be consistently applied.
Back to the toenail offsides. People not gonna like that. I think the big 3D visual is pretty cool though.
The challenge everyone is talking about in today's game- Jackson came in on the Arsenal player ankle high with his studs, with enough force to completely make the ankle buckle, doesn't even get a yellow. WHAT IS VAR DOING???
From what I have heard the refs are supposed to state any allegiance they have, that is supposed to be a factor in the games they’re given. But I’m not certain that is really the case. .
FIFA needs to change the laws if we're using VAR. If there is overlap between the players, they're onside. This toenail BS goes against the spirit/intent of the law
Feels more against the spirit of the law to have a the back edge of an attacker's heel be the only thing keeping him "onside". But as always YMMV with this stuff.
This for me is the biggest thing. There needs to be a culture shift that the VAR's job is to help the ref do a really hard job. But changing a culture is hard to do, and the first step is to recognize that there is a problem, something I don't think the PGMOL has even done.
I'd rather see more goals than offside calls. Besides, with the technology we can make this very precise. Make it a 'majority' or 'most' of the attacking player needing to be offside. Or the players leading appendage must be more than ten inches beyond the defender - ie, the whole foot has to be offside, not his toenail.
If you get what you are asking for, this would provide more advantage to the attackers and you would most likely see more goals. However, I think you would see just as many offside calls? Wherever you want to draw the line, there is still a line that can be breached by a toenail ........
LOL right, but what does that mean? "Majority" or "most". That's what we have now, it's just set at ~5cm. They could set it to 10 inches... just think that would look weird, personally. Imagine they agree, which is why they've started at 5cm (or whatever it is). Next season, it's back to 1mm (I believe). Maybe the outcry will be such that they'll tweak it again.
I hope they keep the "grace" that they brought into the VAR offsides a couple of years ago. It is actually an example of a tweek that made VAR better by paradoxically getting more calls "wrong".
You said it, que "proper football men" getting red in the face when an offside goal is correctly ruled offside by a tiny margin. I'll also be interested to see the new and interesting ways that this will be messed up, either by a weird failure of the technology, or human error. Should be fun.
But a forward facing away from goal as the ball is played should never be called offside if the defender is racing towards his goalie. Cases like that should never have the toenail rule apply.
Well they obviously WANT "offside" to mean offside with basically no buffer. Aka anything behind the 2nd to last defender, whether it's a toe or an upper armpit or the back of your heel as you haven't come back from offside fully... all that mans you're off. Off is off. Then of course they acquiesced to the margin of error after a period of time, I guess because some fans were upset? But it took awhile. Maybe was a decision fueled by the match-going fans, I don't know. I seem to recall it was after a year of no margin, and into the next season. And I think the Dutch league did it first. So that's over a year, to introduce the margin of error. I suppose perhaps they think that this time around having the stadia equipped with ability to quickly show the 3D graphic thingie to the crowd, as well as the ability to make these decisions much quicker in general, might make this more acceptable. We'll see.
Someone is always going to be upset, whether the margin is big or small, or whether the attacker is off side or on...