Is it just me ?

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I don't think its a conspiracy against us - and to be fair we've had a few very dodgy VAR calls go our way (Sheff Utd and Norwich offside goals spring to mind).

However...some of those that have gone against us are ludicrous in the extreme.

Kane goal vs Sheff Utd
Moura is fouled and pushed over, and as he is falling the ball hits him on back of the shoulder. Ball breaks to Kane and Kane scores. Goal is given by the onfield ref, but VAR then decides it was handball by Moura. In this instance, it is far from clear what part of Moura the ball actually hit - so for a VAR to be 100% certain it hit his arm is ridiculous. To add insult to injury, the ref should then have given a freekick to Spurs, as no advantage was received - but instead Sheff Utd got a freekick for handball. Fuck right off.

Kane pushed vs Bournemouth
About as blatant a push and a penalty as you are ever likely to see. The onfield ref missed it, and VAR decided it was not a clear and obvious error. WTF?????

Son red card vs Everton
A foul by Sonny with a worse outcome than would normally happen in that the knock on effect was the Everton player got his legs caught and broke his leg/ankle. Just a foul - nothing more nothing less, but then VAR tells the ref to red card Sonny and we are down to 10 men and it costs us a victory.

Penalties vs Southampton and Newcastle.
Not penalties - simple as.

Offside goals
The issue with some of these marginal offside goals is that VAR is trying to apply a 3D view of the offside line to a 2D picture at a broadcast camera angle. It simply does not work and the margin for human error on this is huge. The worst instance of this was the disallowed Firmino goal against Villa early last season, which VAR got spectacularly wrong. Sonny being offside in the build up to the disallowed Aurier goal against Leicester was another example - but not as obvious. In my opinion the only way to fix this is to have mobile overhead and sideline cameras sync'd and tracking play all the time, as this would remove virtually all of the camera angle issue. However that is not practical.
Good post, can't argue with any of that.
 
As for those who can’t celebrate a goal properly, I do find that strange. Many times over the years, I’ve celebrated like mad before having my bubble burst by a Linesman’s flag. And this was well before VAR came in.

An issue is frequency. Bizarrely disallowed goals are nothing new of course, but now it seems to be happening every other game, rather than a couple of times a season.
 
There's no conspiracy against us or any team, it's simply that VAR (in its current form) is crap.

I was moderately for technology in football, but that was before seeing its real-life implementation. I agree with the posters that VAR is hurting football because the simplicity makes it watchable. It's also a sport with much more of a natural ebb and flow than, say, cricket, so it's harder to bed in technology anyway.

Lots of problems here: a few in short: i. when you start to get out the lines on the computer that means there's millimetres in it, so it's not a 'clear and obvious' error; ii. offside goals are still being scored; iii. problems surrounding the policing of red card level fouls. Overall, it's compounded human error.

I'm all for scrapping VAR unless it can be brought back in such a way that is perfect, but I doubt that will happen. The only tech I am in favour of is goal line, as there can be literally no argument over whether the ball has crossed the line or not.

All replays should be in real time too. Everything looks worse in super slo-mo and freeze frame
 
I don't think its a conspiracy against us - and to be fair we've had a few very dodgy VAR calls go our way (Sheff Utd and Norwich offside goals spring to mind).

However...some of those that have gone against us are ludicrous in the extreme.

Kane goal vs Sheff Utd
Moura is fouled and pushed over, and as he is falling the ball hits him on back of the shoulder. Ball breaks to Kane and Kane scores. Goal is given by the onfield ref, but VAR then decides it was handball by Moura. In this instance, it is far from clear what part of Moura the ball actually hit - so for a VAR to be 100% certain it hit his arm is ridiculous. To add insult to injury, the ref should then have given a freekick to Spurs, as no advantage was received - but instead Sheff Utd got a freekick for handball. Fuck right off.

Kane pushed vs Bournemouth
About as blatant a push and a penalty as you are ever likely to see. The onfield ref missed it, and VAR decided it was not a clear and obvious error. WTF?????

Son red card vs Everton
A foul by Sonny with a worse outcome than would normally happen in that the knock on effect was the Everton player got his legs caught and broke his leg/ankle. Just a foul - nothing more nothing less, but then VAR tells the ref to red card Sonny and we are down to 10 men and it costs us a victory.

Penalties vs Southampton and Newcastle.
Not penalties - simple as.

Offside goals
The issue with some of these marginal offside goals is that VAR is trying to apply a 3D view of the offside line to a 2D picture at a broadcast camera angle. It simply does not work and the margin for human error on this is huge. The worst instance of this was the disallowed Firmino goal against Villa early last season, which VAR got spectacularly wrong. Sonny being offside in the build up to the disallowed Aurier goal against Leicester was another example - but not as obvious. In my opinion the only way to fix this is to have mobile overhead and sideline cameras sync'd and tracking play all the time, as this would remove virtually all of the camera angle issue. However that is not practical.

Nail on head.
 
What do you mean, it's only a matter of time, seems to me everybody's already doing it.......except us!



OK, maybe I am being a little bit sarky, but I'm still annoyed about Sunday. Even if the ref admits he was wrong, not going to give us the points back!
Do you find the fact that everyone agrees with us(Bruce, Carragher etc) makes it worse?
We wont get t hose 2 points back. I am still fuming as well.
 
Two ridiculous penalties awarded against Spurs in consecutive League games in the very late stages.
The Southampton one was irrelevant really but the Newcastle one was the polar opposite and cost two points.
Hopefully it won’t become a pattern.
 
Another factor that Jose has touched upon is that our players are too "nice". Both in the sense that we struggle to play "snide" football to see games out. And in the sense that our players don't put enough pressure on the referees in situations like the one on Sunday.

Had that situation happened to Liverpool, United, Chelsea etc their players would have been on the referee pleading their case. And that does actually have some effect on the decision.

On Sunday the only Spurs player that seemed to actively protest the penalty decision was Winks and he got a warning for it.

Strength in numbers and what not.

I'm not saying we should bitch and moan about every decision that goes against us. But we could definitely enforce our presence some more on 50/50 scenarios like on Sunday.



And not just this group of players. For decades we've been too nice, probably since the early 80s team. We weren't 'soft spurs' back then, eg. City Cup Final when even Ardiles was being pushed back from Gerry Gow, a couple of their strikers lay on the ground nursing injuries adjacent to Roberts and Miller. We got in Hackett's ear whilst losing and City were breaking game up with fouls.

Just having a look at some crucial semis we've lost

The Newcastle semi when one of their players pulled of a fantastic one handed save on the line, missed by the ref; ref said later when it was pointed out he had missed it 'the reaction of the Tottenham players was superb'. It shouldn't have been. We should have been in his ear, making the next 50-50 more likely to go our way. I think one of the old players said Venables made this point to them when he was manager.
.
Chelsea in the 'non ball over the line' farce. Ref said later, I allowed myself to be bullied / convinced by the Chelsea players.

Another Chelsea semi, the 4-2, that was 2-2 at a crucial period and Chelsea were stopping Alli from turning by constant niggly fouls, and then standing over the ball to stop the quick free kick. I didn't see our players pointing this out to the ref.

The recent United one, how many fouls was Herrera allowed to do before being booked? None of ours were protesting. Even holding up eight fingers after 8 fouls would show all watching how many, and embarrass the ref if he kept letting him get away with it. There was a 2 footed tackle by one of theirs as well with no reaction from us.

Talking of the Mancs, Pedro Mendes at Old Trafford, was there outrage from our players?... all I remember is Fergie having a rant afterwards about how his team were denied a penalty.

I purposely didn't see Sunday's game as I knew something like that would happen to us (stopped watching Everton Palace day when penalty was given) but as said above, Dier and others should have been in ref's ear about the push at least - he may have asked to see it, when he was watching the still of Dier's arm raised So what if they get a warning or booked.
 
This is what will happen...

PGMOL, the premier league and the FA will discuss it.
They will decide it needs changing, and issue some guidance. The following round of games, Van Dijk will handle a goalbound shot. The ref will use his new discretion and decide its no penalty, and as such, no card.
Probably be against us.
 
I believed football would be a more fair game with VAR. How naive I was... It's worse than ever now and it has almost killed the sport entirely.
I'm almost done with it tbh.
Same as you, I genuinely thought it would level the playing field but like fuck has it.
They look for ways to help or hinder teams IMO.
Last season Liverpool were teflon, eveything was checked so fast and swept under the carpet. Wheras every goal we scored seems to be subjec to microns when it came to offside.
Also, on at least two occasions, players threw themselves on the floor in front of Kane and we got nothing, where as someone looking funny at Salah would be subject to extensive VAR reviewing and a penalty.

Part of the reason we suffered was because the fucktard refs weren't giving the penalty, instead waiting for the fucktards in box watching it. Problem was, the fucktards in the box are mates with the fucktards on the pitch and refused, for MONTHS to overturn a no-penalty decision with VAR. It was embarassing watching it. And it didn't change until Linekar called them out. IIRC, he pointed out there had been 90+ incidents where VAR should have overturned a referee, and no one had happened. Almost overnight it started to happen.

REFS ARE BENT. Simple as that. It's right up there with boxing for dodgy officiating.


My personal take is the people watching the replay should not be refs. They should have an independent body of people trained on the rules of the game, fully prepped on interpretation and how to impliment it. I don't want to see people who have played the game, as they're all opinionated twats. I just want people with common sense who will aply that common sense consistently.

They also need to expand VAR. Lets use Sundays game. They first checked whether Dire hand balled it. Once they determined his stupid, flapping arm (it went up AFTER he jumped folks) they then went back to check if Newcastle were offside when the free kick came in.
What the needed to do was go one again and then realise the stupid cock of a referee gave a free kick he should never have given. Newcastle player played it straight to a Spurs player, we were on for a break that may have made it 2-0, but the Newcastle player that gave the ball away, ran straight into a Spurs player and the ref stopped it. What the actual FUCK.
 
This is what will happen...

PGMOL, the premier league and the FA will discuss it.
They will decide it needs changing, and issue some guidance. The following round of games, Van Dijk will handle a goalbound shot. The ref will use his new discretion and decide its no penalty, and as such, no card.
Probably be against us.

At this point, they need to keep up this charade of fairness until at least the halfway point. You’re right; if they changed their ways today then we basically get shafted (along with Palace) this year and the others are completely off the hook.

I’m completely against how they’re applying this, but maybe, just maybe, we’ll be the beneficiaries and things will even out. I’m trying my best to remain positive.
 
What the needed to do was go one again and then realise the stupid cock of a referee gave a free kick he should never have given.
This 100%. Scandalous decision, he didn't see the incident but turned round to see two players on the floor and made a judgement call to give the foul for the player who last had the ball.
Should be called to account for that as it led to such a controversial ending but he won't be as their too busy protecting their own.
 
My biggest gripe is how VAR is applied. The refs and dickheads at stockley park are able to pick and choose which incidents they review leaving the decisions open to interpretation or indeed corruption. We've had players manhandled and rugby tackled in the box (dele v scum) nothing given.

These hand ball decisions are another thing this bullshit t shirt rule which means they can now look at the shirt colour (RED) and say oh but it just grazed the shirt and therefore not a penalty. See Arse v spammers.
 
I've banged on about this before but you're right that it's particularly sickening when the lines come out and they're trying to assess millimetres of difference.

I won't say exactly what but I have a science background and as far as experimental measurements go (you could treat VAR offside decisions like that TBH) it would be bad science. If you wrote a report and presented those offside calls as absolute 'fact', you would look ridiculous and someone would rightfully be asking about every single contribution of measurement error.

Simply put:
- what's the resolution of the image used?
- what's your frame rate?
- given this frame rate, when did the ball leave the last passer's foot?

I can't put it any other way than it's men in a box using noticeably imperfect tools to produce a perfect decision. There should totally be an option for 'inconclusive' that gives the benefit of the doubt to the attacker. It's what the offside rule used to aim to do by eye and is within the spirit of the game. We all know the kind of egregious offsides that have been missed before VAR and those would be picked up conclusively without a doubt.

1000 times this.

The whole thing makes a mockery of the notion of "clear and obvious"

And the thing I always want to drive home about this, because this is the real axis of disagreement, this INHERENTLY CANNOT get better with time or improve with further development.

The kicking of a football is NOT a freeze-frameable instant of time (a concept which is itself theoretically shaky). And even if it were to be defined at that level (the foot making contact with the ball or the ball breaking contact with the foot) TV cameras don't capture the footage at that level of precision!

The whole thing is an illusion. It's precision theater.
 
I don't think there is a conspiracy against us. But i do think when you're at the top of the football tree your profile can influence officials into giving you the benefit of the doubt. Liverpool get it now. Utd got it for years. How long did they go without conceding a penalty at OT when Fergie was around? Remember all those Fergie time goals?

If Liverpool had got that penalty decision against them in the last minute you can bet the media would have it front and centre of their agenda for the next week. What were we last match on MOTD? If that's Liverpool\City it's the headline game and all the analysis would we be on the injustice. That pressure and scrutiny can subtly affect officials in their following games.
 
It’s not about whether it Is with us or against us simple fact is the system is not working to the best of the game of football in its current iteration - remember we maybe wouldn’t have made it to the champions league final if it weren’t for the Sterling offside call.
 
I think one thing that can improve it is a time limit. Once a foul, or goal or whatever has happened, the ref has, I don’t know, 5 seconds to call a VAR investigation and then VAR has only 20 seconds to make a decision. That would make the game more fluid and weed out these micro-analysis decisions.
 
VAR lines shouldn't be used.

It should simply be case of looking at the image and deciding if a body part being offsid aided in the goal.
If a big fat meat heat is clearly sticking out across the line, and said big fat meat head was used to score, offside.
If big fat meat head was offside but rest of body onside and the ball was slipped through to feet then it should be onside.
No lines, just look and decide quickly.

May as well do away with linesmen.
 
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