04 Oct 2023 05:59:54
In specific situations like the Jones red the ref sees the video and makes a decision, to have different people for different situations opens it up for mistakes, in rugby the ref and video official talk it through and the ref says can i see something where i can award the try. In this situation they have removed the ref from the decision making and handed it to 3 people 2 var and the video guy, between them they all came to the wrong decision. The 4th official is closest to the onfield screen what's his role? he's a ref he is ideally placed to review onscreen decisions and physically relay them to the ref or it could be done by the ref, if there's going to be human error it has to be on the pitch by the onfield officials var boys hung the ref out to dry. Play must stop until there's a multi person yes or no from var to the ref to the point where its conclusive the right decision is made. Rugby and cricket have it spot on and i don't get the prem there's an arrogance that football can not be managed that way that its bigger and better and more important. Saturday showed how wrong they are 4 decisions went against liverpool the 2 reds the goal the 2nd yellow for a spurs player oh and maybe a 5th Spurs integrity, there can not in anyway be one person on the spurs team who did not realise the refs had screwed us out of a goal, wheres their integrity. No its the brilliance of their performance that got em 3 points that's their integrity.

1.) 04 Oct 2023
04 Oct 2023 07:59:24
I really don't think you can argue either of the reds in isolation. I don't think VAR was used correctly in showing the still for 20 seconds and then a poor angle video and then the decision is made. Don't know if true but have heard the rule is to not show stills in this instance at all. So application probably wrong and while I don't want that as a red card I can understand It being given or at least having an argument about it. Which if that's the case you can't really say it was a wrong decision.

Apart from goal obviously the main ones for me were udogie not getting yellow for waving cards at Jota getting him sent off I thought that was big protocol this year. Gomez pen not even being looked at is weird. Romero apparently in crowd after goal and didn't get second yellow either? Again this has just always been a standard.

2.) 04 Oct 2023
04 Oct 2023 08:35:35
But they didn't remove the ref from the decision making. The ref gave Jones the red card.

3.) 04 Oct 2023
04 Oct 2023 09:41:48
But they influenced his decision, Rigsby. The ref had initially shown Jones a yellow-card before VAR intervened and showed stills that showed the worst part of the challenge without any context with what happened prior to it. The ref was given a subjective perspective to work with instead of getting the full-picture of what happened. He may have still come to the conclusion that Jones' challenge warranted a red card if given all the information he required but we may never know if that would be the case.

4.) 04 Oct 2023
04 Oct 2023 10:24:59
Pickle, your premise that it should be a red is blown out of the water due to the VAR manipulating the system to show a still shot at the END of the play (something that is actually AGAINST the guidelines) esp. after the ref saw it and gave a yellow. Your premise is dead from the jump cos once the VAR broke protocol (strangely, something they claim they can't do whenever it suits them, right? ) and showed a still shot, all other things go out the window. It is what it is.

5.) 04 Oct 2023
04 Oct 2023 12:40:16
Agree 100% Fbart, in rugby the assistant and VAR are there to support the ref, and everyone is pulling in same direction, but in the end he/ she’s always accountable.

In the PL, the implementation and design seems to be overly complicated, with so many parties involved it’s leading to lots of confusion on who, how and when it should be used (not to mention the communication issues) .

The sense of panic on the audio, with multiple different views involved, was palpable. In the confusion it didn’t even seem clear to the VAR and AVAR themselves whether they’d call it onside or offside (call it confusion or suspicious as you wish)

6.) 04 Oct 2023
04 Oct 2023 15:35:51
Awk lads, just every time you see it it gets worse. Even more so from the audio being released too. As Ed said in his review there were simply too many incidents to review:
- Udogie waving the card for Jota to get booked after he tripped himself over? The fact Jota got booked was ridiculous, he never foulde the guy. It gets even worse when you realise that Udogie was allowed to gesture to the ref to book Jota - why was this not a booking? Is that not the rules to be applied? It gets even worse when you realise Udogie was on a yellow when he did that so should have been sent off - 10 v 10 we'd have won easy

- Ed mentioned the penalty incident with Gomez - VAR did not even look at it. If it had have been the other way round, would VAR then have looked at it?

- the sheer number of crazy bookings given to Liverpool

- the amount of times Spurs players waved imaginary cards at the ref and none were booked? Awk, so much for those rules that were laid down at the start of the season eh?

We have discussed the main points but there were lots of crazy decisions in that game - honestly the worst officiating I have ever seen since I began watching football in the 80s.