APPARENTLY, Premier League chiefs launched an “emergency review” of the two VAR howlers which robbed West Ham and Newcastle of points this weekend.How thrilling and fast-moving of them. Let’s regard them as the fourth emergency service and give them a little clap on our doorsteps every Thursday night, eh?
West Ham were controversially denied an equaliser against Chelsea at the weekendCredit: Getty
If they want a meaningful review, then here’s an effective conclusion — scrap VAR altogether. Abolish the whole rotten shooting match.
This is the one solution everyone in football seems too terrified of suggesting.
While this week’s victims — Newcastle boss Eddie Howe, along with Hammers manager David Moyes and skipper Declan Rice — complained long and hard about the embarrassing shambles of it all, they stopped short of calling for VAR to be binned off.
Everybody keeps parroting the lie that “VAR is not the problem, it’s the individuals operating it”.
READ MORE IN FOOTBALL
Because it’s easier to trot out lines like that than to actually think about things.
As we enter the fourth season of VAR in the English top flight, with decision-making in Stockley Park getting even worse, that mantra is patently nonsense.
The majority of decisions on fouls are subjective, so there can never be anything remotely like absolute justice.
Slow-motion replays often make incidents look more incriminating, meaning VAR often makes things worse.
Most read in Football
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE BETTING OFFER – GET £50 BACK AS CASH
And don’t even get started on the definition of “clear and obvious error”.
There is a conspiracy of silence on the idea of revoking VAR.
TV companies love it because it makes football all about their product, rather than the live spectacle for match-going fans.
Most football writers never pay to watch matches and don’t understand the widespread loathing of VAR among fans who do.
Referees will never call for abolition because VAR means jobs for the old boys. Those who retire from on-field reffing, such as Mike Dean and Lee Mason, can carry on earning in Stockley Park.
It was the experienced Mason who told rookie top-flight ref Michael Salisbury to overrule his correct decision to award an own goal against Tyrick Mitchell at St James’ Park, even though the Crystal Palace defender committed a foul himself.
The decision by VAR Jarred Gillett to advise Andy Madley to disallow Maxwel Cornet’s West Ham “equaliser” at Chelsea was even worse.
We were assured VAR would significantly reduce cheating. Yet Chelsea keeper Edouard Mendy got away with feigning injury because of VAR, when Cornet “scored”.
Madley had got it right the old way. So had Salisbury.
It’s not about the personnel, it’s about VAR itself.
Our refs are good, bad and indifferent and they have good, bad and indifferent days. But we’re not going to dig up a couple of dozen better officials to make VAR tickety-boo.
And it’s not just in England where VAR is denounced as a shambles — Lazio’s former Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri was raging about it after Saturday’s defeat by Napoli.
The West Ham and Newcastle flashpoints weren’t the Premier League’s only weekend VAR controversies either.
For sheer joylessness, the denial of Alexis Mac Allister’s wonder strike for Brighton against Leicester, because of a toenail offside in the build-up, took some beating.
But apparently, footballers scoring long-range screamers is a menace which needs stamping out.
Funnily enough, I thought Mason — on a double shift this weekend — was right to rule out Gabriel Martinelli’s “opener” for Arsenal at Manchester United because Martin Odegaard won possession by barging over Christian Eriksen.
But that’s not the point. I could have accepted that goal standing for or against my own team.
There always were incorrect decisions but we’d yell about them briefly, then get on with watching a fast-moving, spontaneous game.
Now we can’t even celebrate goals properly, knowing Mason and friends will be forensically searching for a reason to rule it out.
Odegaard’s “foul” on Eriksen lead to an Arsenal goal being ruled out against Man UtdCredit: Rex
Nobody suggests scrapping VAR, because being labelled a technophobic philistine is apparently some great stigma, as if you can’t have progressive views on life while hating what VAR has done.
This country is going to the dogs. There’s an energy crisis, inflation is rampant, and a woman whose head appears to be stuffed with polystyrene will enter 10 Downing Street today.
Football is supposed to be an escape from all this.
Most people who pay to watch it just want to enjoy themselves. When they’ve calmed down, a quiet majority don’t even believe it’s all that serious.
But instead, technology in decision-making is becoming even more extensive.
So-called “robot linesmen” are arriving in the Champions League and the World Cup to make toenail offsides even more commonplace.
When their wiring malfunctions, presumably Fifa and Uefa can also stage some emergency reviews.
Because that’s what they reckon football is all about — middle-aged men in blazers taking themselves too seriously.
CHEST SO SILLY
ON the subject of VAR, Richarlison was booked for taking his shirt off after scoring for Spurs against Fulham — only for it to be ruled out for offside.
Yet if you’re rewriting history and the goal didn’t count, surely the semi-nakedness didn’t count either and his yellow should be rescinded?
CENTRE STAGE
I AM loving the return to fashion of authentic centre-forwards in the Premier League — see Erling Haaland, Darwin Nunez and especially Wolves’ bid to sign free-agent Diego Costa.
Two of the best in breed are Brentford’s Ivan Toney and Fulham’s Aleksandar Mitrovic, who were both on Newcastle’s books, a club that worships its No 9s.
Toon have just shelled out £60million on Alexander Isak, who also looks very promising — but they could have saved that Saudi cash by keeping either Toney or Mitrovic.
It would, though, be sacrilegious to point out the manager who let both strikers go — and presumably didn’t rate either of them.
The infallible Rafa Benitez.
ONLINE GOONS
ARSENAL fans love an online conspiracy theory — and before Sunday’s trip to Manchester United they were ranting and raving about referee Paul Tierney and VAR Lee Mason both hailing from Greater Manchester.
When VAR disallowed Gabriel Martinelli’s early ‘goal’, the protests became even more shrill.
Supporters of southern clubs taunt United fans that they all come from Surrey. But when refs are from Manchester, they’re assumed to be boyhood Stretford Enders.
Many of our referees are incompetent — but they are not corrupt.
GUNNER LOVE IT
AFTER two seasons away, Spurs fans are salivating for tomorrow night’s Champions League opener against Marseille.
And not least because the visitors include former Arsenal players Alexis Sanchez, Matteo Guendouzi and Sead Kolasinac as well as Nuno Tavares, on loan from the Gunners.
It is not far short of the first North London derby in Champions League history.
So even Gooners can enjoy some Wednesday night European football for the first time in five years.
WHEN managers start talking with jarring honesty about their own clubs, it’s usually a sign that the end is nigh.
It just happened with Bournemouth’s promotion-winning manager Scott Parker and, sadly, it’s now happening with FA Cup-winning Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers too.
Read More on The Sun
ON Saturday at Lord’s, something called Trent Rockets defeated something else called Manchester Originals in the final of a short game of cricket called The Hundred.
And nobody really cared as the teams are completely made up and neither the players nor fans had any true allegiance to either. More
