[Football] "It's not VAR, it's the people running it"

[Beanstalk]

Problem is everywhere else it seems to be working reasonably well.

It’s the shockingly poor level of refereeing that’s the issue not the use of technology as such.

Exactly this. I think by Christmas the majority will be back in favour of VAR after it is used in exemplary fashion at the World Cup. Semi-automated offsides are going to be a bit of a revelation in my opinion - one of the current frustrations (Ass Refs not flagging until 5 mins after) will cease to be overnight.

This will not last long though as Jarred Gillet and pals slide their chairs under the table again and think "time to press some buttons and make some new rules up!"

 

[Dave the hatosaurus]

Take away the emotion and the quality of the goal - Mwepu was interfering with play with his attempted overhead kick.

It was offside imho. A shame though

Well i disagree with this and will attempt to explain why . Firstly he was only offside if you completely accept the line drawing and whether it was done on exactly the right place at exactly the right time ( apparently they had problems with this ) . Secondly and more importantly was Mwepu "interfering with play " when he did not actually touch the ball . You say yes i say no and although obviously the concensus on this board would in all likelihood agree with me i do think this is not clear and is a matter of debate ( a previous post with a link to a leicester fan forum has shown at least one of them agrees with me ).
So finally bearing all this in mind was a " clear and obvious error " made onfield by the officials . At this point stop for a moment if you are about to say yes and further consider that it was so clear and obvious that it took nearly 5 minutes to reach that decision !

 

[borat]

In real time - as the game was refereed, there was absolutely no reason to point out any clear and obvious area. Mwepu is a toenail offside and it’s virtually impossible to see if he’s made any contact with the ball. No one on the pitch appeals. 30000 people (including many Leicester fans) and a worldwide audience are deprived a possibly career-defining strike because of a complete and utter misuse of VAR. Hated the application of VAR from day one. Yesterday was the ultimate joy-sucking-passion-killing moment. BIN IT or prescribe application rules (not laws) that make the technology usable.

You either want goal decisions reviewed externally or you don't. It doesnt really matter whether people appeal or not. If that becomes a factor should defenders make random appeals in order to get VAR to review?

VAR was not misused. A goal was scored - it was checked and Mwepu was judged to have interfered (Correctly in my opinion as the defender ducks his chin a bit for the header to avoid contact.

Interference can be difficult to infer. In this case in went against us and can see why.

 

[Bozza]

Am I missing something? WHo does the blue line connect to I can't see a defender?

If you extend the line you get to a defender's armpit. Could if have been that?

 

[LamieRobertson]

Well i disagree with this and will attempt to explain why . Firstly he was only offside if you completely accept the line drawing and whether it was done on exactly the right place at exactly the right time ( apparently they had problems with this ) . Secondly and more importantly was Mwepu "interfering with play " when he did not actually touch the ball . You say yes i say no and although obviously the concensus on this board would in all likelihood agree with me i do think this is not clear and is a matter of debate ( a previous post with a link to a leicester fan forum has shown at least one of them agrees with me ).
So finally bearing all this in mind was a " clear and obvious error " made onfield by the officials . At this point stop for a moment if you are about to say yes and further consider that it was so clear and obvious that it took nearly 5 minutes to reach that decision !

Which to me was the nub of the matter

 

[Beanstalk]

Where we sit at the Amex, we have the luxury of a clear view of the commentators screens so can see the process of VAR (and decision) live and therefore before it is announced to the crowd. In general (not yesterday) it makes the process a lot less maddening.

What was particularly bizarre about the disallowed goal was that, on screen, it was blatantly clear that they could not work out the position of the player behind Mwepu. They kept zooming in, zooming out, having a clear issue with correctly mapping the lines to the deepest positions of each player. The check also started much later than any other I've seen this season - not really until the celebrations had ended. It wasn't a case of "clear and obvious" here either, that doesn't apply to offsides as per guidance: factual decisions such as offsides, and the issue of whether a player is inside or outside the penalty area, are not subject to the "clear and obvious" test. If the VAR sees an error has been made in such a situation they will intervene, regardless of how marginal the decision is. If Kavanagh had believed he had drawn the lines correctly and he was interfering with play, he should've given it in under 30 seconds. It's incompetence on a human level, not a technological level.

Seeing the screens, it may surprise people to know that there were two other farcical VAR moments that didn't make the big screens. Kavanagh did a full VAR check (as in it flashed up on the screen as VAR check) as to whether Trossard had taken the ball out of play for our penalty. He also had one of the quickest VAR checks on Maddison's "tackle" on Mwepu, only looked at one angle and told the ref to continue. I haven't seen it back as it didn't make the MotD cut but there seemed to be unanimity on Twitter that it was a reckless challenge.

 

[Dave the hatosaurus]

If you extend the line you get to a defender's armpit. Could if have been that?

In your blow up picture it becomes clearer that there is actually a defender directly behind Mwepu ( you can see his foot between Mwepu's feet ) No wonder they had trouble !

 

[Bozza]

Well i disagree with this and will attempt to explain why . Firstly he was only offside if you completely accept the line drawing and whether it was done on exactly the right place at exactly the right time ( apparently they had problems with this ) . Secondly and more importantly was Mwepu "interfering with play " when he did not actually touch the ball . You say yes i say no and although obviously the concensus on this board would in all likelihood agree with me i do think this is not clear and is a matter of debate ( a previous post with a link to a leicester fan forum has shown at least one of them agrees with me ).
So finally bearing all this in mind was a " clear and obvious error " made onfield by the officials . At this point stop for a moment if you are about to say yes and further consider that it was so clear and obvious that it took nearly 5 minutes to reach that decision !

I agree with all your frustrations but, like others, you're conflating "clear and obvious error" with offside where CAOE doesn't play any part.

I was at the game, but I think I heard/read from someone who wasn't, that VAR had some sort of technical issue with this, being unable to draw their lines which caused much of the delay.

Put that aside and we get back to the offside rule, as it stands in the rules of the game, just not being suitable given the forensic scrutiny that VAR enables. Since the introduction of VAR there have been numerous instances where, even with a freeze frame, we'd all say "onside", only for the dreaded lines to be drawn and the decision to be offside by a toenail/armpit/knee hair.

 

[Bozza]

In your blow up picture it becomes clearer that there is actually a defender directly behind Mwepu ( you can see his foot between Mwepu's feet ) No wonder they had trouble !

I thought that, but wasn't sure.

The blur is such that, as you previously said, it's just not possible to be absolutely sure where the most forward ball-playing part of each relevant player is. But, and I know I'm labouring the point a bit here, that's where trying to apply the black/white rule of the current offside rule just does not work with VAR.

 

[BadFish]

If you extend the line you get to a defender's armpit. Could if have been that?

Keep going and you get to the bloke in seat 36 row G?

 

[Seasider78]

Fans cheering and jeering when decisions go against the other teams is not helping would rather the whole stadium (home and away) booed and chanted **** VAR to send a message to the PL to get rid of this shambles

 

[banjo]

Isn’t the fact that the defender headed the ball clear mean Mwepu didn’t interfere with play. Or am I barking up the wrong tree.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Isn’t the fact that the defender headed the ball clear mean Mwepu didn’t interfere with play. Or am I barking up the wrong tree.

No you're not. This has been my thought all along.

 

[Silverhatch]

You either want goal decisions reviewed externally or you don't. It doesnt really matter whether people appeal or not. If that becomes a factor should defenders make random appeals in order to get VAR to review?

VAR was not misused. A goal was scored - it was checked and Mwepu was judged to have interfered (Correctly in my opinion as the defender ducks his chin a bit for the header to avoid contact.

Interference can be difficult to infer. In this case in went against us and can see why.

It is so difficult to infer it took four and a half minutes and an on-field review. Was it Clear & Obvious? Clearly and Obviously not.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Isn’t the fact that the defender headed the ball clear mean Mwepu didn’t interfere with play. Or am I barking up the wrong tree.

For me the first question isn't has Mwepu interfered from an offside position, the first question is "have the officials made a clear and obvious error?".

The answer to that question is that if it takes you 4.5mins just to decide to send the referee to a monitor, it already isn't clear and obvious. The fact it took that long tells you it isn't. Goal should have stood, same the other way round too if they had flagged for offside. It was subjective whether he was interfering, there was no need for VAR to get involved.

 

[Bozza]

For me the first question isn't has Mwepu interfered from an offside position, the first question is "have the officials made a clear and obvious error?".

The answer to that question is that if it takes you 4.5mins just to decide to send the referee to a monitor, it already isn't clear and obvious. The fact it took that long tells you it isn't. Goal should have stood, same the other way round too if they had flagged for offside. It was subjective whether he was interfering, there was no need for VAR to get involved.

It feels like my posts might be read as defending VAR, but they're really not. I'm as frustrated as everyone else and was booing loudly from the WSU during that torturous wait yesterday.

However, I'm not sure I agree with your post...

You say: the first question is "have the officials made a clear and obvious error?"...

...but offside isn't subject to CAOE. I've not watched the TV coverage back, so I don't have the benefit of watching the VAR review from beginning to end. But, as things stand, VAR have to determine if offside is a factor. If Mwepu had connected, and scored, then the goal would have been cancelled out because he was determined to be offside. By all accounts it took a long time to determine that for technical reasons. (As I've said before, I completely agree with the frustrations that come from these forensic line-drawing decisions on this).

Once they determined the believed Mwepu was offside it seems they then handed over to the on-field ref to determine the extend of his interference, if any.

Like [MENTION=1313]BadFish[/MENTION], I'm at a bit of a loss when it comes to interference from an offisde position. Pretty much if you're there, you're interfering as defenders need to adjust their play based on the attacker - they can't afford to gamble whether offside will save them or not.

Like everyone else though, I went loopy for the goal and I'm gutted it was overturned.

 

[herecomesaregular]

I'm just left confused by it all tbh and rarely feel able to celebrate a "goal" was just scored. or was it?

Why is there the assumption that the ref is Wrong if he is asked to check it? Rather than a bloke in a caravan asking him to relook at it can it not purely be his decision if he is not 100% confident (rather than another ref's opinion, which immediately brings conflict) or each team has 1 or 2 "challenges" allowed? Keep the power with the onfield ref even if he feels he's right but later can be shown as wrong. Not some other ref interfering, who views laws/interpretation differently.

As yes mike them up to get rid of scum like Fernandes always harassing them. There is no footballer on earth I hate more than that weasle-y scumbag.

As for Mac's disallowed goal I can't see how Enock was deemed interfering when the defender behind headed it away ok. If he had continued into the box for a tap in then maybe, yes. But the defender cleared it.

Overall, bin current VAR(or at least mike up refs). Killing football as it looks for any excuse to disallow a goal.

 

[Marshy]

VAR is good, just get it right FFS and a lot quicker.

 

[Bedsex]

Keep going and you get to the bloke in seat 36 row G?

I definitely wasn’t playing him on, so not sure why you’re bringing me into this! [emoji1787]

 

[BadFish]

I definitely wasn’t playing him on, so not sure why you’re bringing me into this! [emoji1787]

I sit opposite you, I'm the guy with the telephoto lens