Referees/VAR in the Premier League

[Stan]

1 hour ago, LFCMike said:

I said it in the match thread yesterday that VAR shouldn't be used for ruling out incidents like the Salah one. It should be used for ones like Mane's yesterday, absolutely. You can see in that incident Mane's clearly off. When they start drawing lines to try to show a toe or something offside it's gone too far. Sometimes drawing lines from the wrong part of the defenders body too let's not forget. I'm not having that they're always getting the right frame from when it's left the player passing the ball either

 

10 minutes ago, DeadLinesman said:

I completely agree with this. @Smiley Culture is correct in that offside is offside, but we shouldn’t be taking minutes to decide these calls. For me, if it’s so close to call with the naked eye on a replay within 10/15 seconds, benefit of the doubt goes with the attacking team and you get on with the game. It’s become too heavily weighed in favour of the defenders.

Same. The length of time taken for some decisions is negatively affecting how VAR is perceived. Delay of the game isn't great from a fan's perspective. How do you decide what length of time to give refs though? 

And does that factor in allowing referees to see their decisions on a monitor too? 

[Rick]

4 minutes ago, Smiley Culture said:

Being offside is a clear error pal. 

You’re missing out the obvious part pal. 

[LFCMike]

3 minutes ago, Smiley Culture said:

Being offside to the naked eye is a clear error pal. 

Fixed it for you. 

[RandoEFC+]

Offside is offside. If you want goals that are less than 3mm offside to be allowed then you're only moving the line and then when you have a goal disallowed for being 3.2mm offside you'll be getting your Kleenex out again. The offside rule is the offside rule. The way you have to wait for VAR to celebrate a goal now is a problem I don't contest but the offside rule itself is about the only rule in football that makes sense and doesn't need changing. Whether or not the technology can reliably enforce the offside rule with 100% accuracy is another debatable issue. Personally I don't think it can but there's always going to be a margin of error, whether you try and give the benefit of doubt to the attacker up to a certain threshold or you accept the current use of the technology. As much as nobody wants to see goals getting chalked off for any excuse, in this instance there has at least been a bit of consistency in how they're enforcing the offside rule. It's not high praise but it's happened to a lot of teams.

As for the number of offsides against Liverpool. We've been hearing for years as an explanation of why teams like them and Man Utd get so many penalties from fans of those clubs is that it's only because they spend more time in the opposition box and their players are harder to tackle or drawing a foul or whatever. If that's an acceptable reason then you also have to acknowledge that a team that goes on the attack more often like this Liverpool side does is also going to get caught offside more often.

All I've read about the Salah goal since yesterday is "his toe was offside" or "he was only just offside". If his toe, which he can score with, is offside, then he is offside, that is the rule, that has always been the rule, with or without VAR. This is how lines work. Your problem isn't with the rule, it's with the false hope you get from the flag staying down.

So yeah, just about everything surrounding the implementation of VAR is again flawed and impacts on the experience of the fans but in this instance the rule itself should be left well alone and I don't think this one thing is actually affecting results in an unfair way.

[Rick]

I’m not asking for a numbered margin of error. I’m talking about looking at a replay and being able to say “he’s clearly offside” without using a tape measure. Nobody here thought it was offside when we saw the replay. Let the video assistant look at the footage and if there is a CLEAR & OBVIOUS error being made by the on field referee, then you intervene. 

Edited November 29, 2020 by Rick

[Lucas]

From what I've experienced of it this season, I'd personally be happy for it to be judged by the naked eye from the camera shot.

By all means let VAR look at it, but if its too close to call from the views they are provided and the referee really doesn't know, give the goal. I don't think anyone can complain if its that tight.

The lines are just not working for me. Horribly inconsistent. I won't be convinced otherwise.

Rightly or wrongly, it's up to the referee to interpret penalty decisions, he may as well judge the offside too, let's not forget they should carry a decisive role in the game.

Edited November 29, 2020 by Lucas

[Smiley Culture]

1 hour ago, Rick said:

You’re missing out the obvious part pal. 

If you’re offside, you’re offside. Regardless of by how much. You simply can’t have tolerance on some offences but not others because there’s been a nice goal scored at the end of it. It makes a mockery of the game, the laws and VAR. 

 

[Stan]

14 minutes ago, Lucas said:

From what I've experienced of it this season, I'd personally be happy for it to be judged by the naked eye from the camera shot.

By all means let VAR look at it, but if its too close to call from the views they are provided and the referee really doesn't know, give the goal. I don't think anyone can complain if its that tight.

The lines are just not working for me. Horribly inconsistent. I won't be convinced otherwise.

Rightly or wrongly, it's up to the referee to interpret penalty decisions, he may as well judge the offside too, let's not forget they should carry a decisive role in the game.

But we've seen VAR overturn decisions, correctly in my view either for defenders/attackers, that have been incorrectly made by an on-field referee. On top of that, we've seen referees being made to look at monitors when the decision is quite clear to make from the VAR official - this wastes further time. 

I don't mind offsides being looked at again, but not to the extent they're being looked at now and games being delayed for 2-3 minutes sometimes. If there's even a doubt it should be looked at, then let a VAR official look at it. I don't understand why an on-field referee is told to look at offside decisions on a monitor - he's not going to see anything different from what the VAR official sees, is he?

[Smiley Culture]

Matchday referees judging offsides without any help would result in games lasting hours upon hours and people would whinge that a ninety minute game takes four hours to complete. 

[Lucas]

42 minutes ago, Stan said:

But we've seen VAR overturn decisions, correctly in my view either for defenders/attackers, that have been incorrectly made by an on-field referee. On top of that, we've seen referees being made to look at monitors when the decision is quite clear to make from the VAR official - this wastes further time. 

I don't mind offsides being looked at again, but not to the extent they're being looked at now and games being delayed for 2-3 minutes sometimes. If there's even a doubt it should be looked at, then let a VAR official look at it. I don't understand why an on-field referee is told to look at offside decisions on a monitor - he's not going to see anything different from what the VAR official sees, is he?

I don't have a problem with VAR looking at it but I have a serious issue with the lines business.

Why should VAR waste the time they do using these stupid lines when the ref could just as quickly trot over, see its a tight decision and just say to himself, is it really that obvious for me to not award a goal? 

We don't need lines. Look at it once or twice with the naked eye, three times if it's really tight and if you're not sure, the answer is staring you in the face. Award the goal.

I really dont think anyone can really cry about it if its that tight.

Edited November 29, 2020 by Lucas

[Stan]

1 minute ago, Lucas said:

I don't have a problem with VAR looking at it but I have a serious issue with the lines business.

Why should VAR waste the time they do using these stupid lines when the ref could just as quickly trot over, see its a tight decision and just say to himself, is it really that obvious for me to not award a goal? 

We don't need lines. Look at it once or twice with the naked eye, three times if it's really tight and if you're not sure, the answer is staring you in the face. Award the goal.

I really dont think anyone can really cry about it if its that tight.

Because the angles have to be right and sometimes the perspective isn't there from certain angles.

Ideally, for the above to work without lines, we'd need the kind of cameras they have at the Olympics in 100m races which moves on a bar to determine, at the end if necessary, who wins a race if it's very close to being level.

My point being that you have to have cameras in line with the last line of defence/or above the linesman moving constantly. At the moment we have an aerial angle on most VAR pictures which could show  a player to be on/off but bring it down to a level that's actually in line with the players/linesman and it can be a totally different picture. 

[RandoEFC+]

1 hour ago, Rick said:

I’m not asking for a numbered margin of error. I’m talking about looking at a replay and being able to say “he’s clearly offside” without using a tape measure. Nobody here thought it was offside when we saw the replay. Let the video assistant look at the footage and if there is a CLEAR & OBVIOUS error being made by the on field referee, then you intervene. 

What do you actually think this solves apart from allowing a couple of offside goals scored by your team recently to stand? It just changes it into an argument about what qualifies as clear and obvious instead. 

The lines thing is imperfect but at least it's rooted in some sort of scientific approach. Changing it into some sort of fluffy, undefined "naked eye" criteria just opens it up to more inconsistency because you know with our current referees and probably any set of human beings that you can show them a marginal offside call and they'd be split down the middle on whether it's onside or offside.

The offside rule itself is about the only thing in football that is clearly defined. It's literally the last thing you need to be fucking around with. There are countless problems with VAR and officiating in the Premier League, I just can't see this suggestion at all that we should start introducing grey areas to one of the only black and white rules in football, it's ridiculous. The sooner we all admit that we're going to cry about it when it goes against us but there's no other sensible way to enforce the rule, the better.

Nobody has this issue with the goal line technology. Should we start allowing goals now where all of the ball hasn't crossed all of the line but it looked like it did "to the naked eye"?

A line is a line, that really is all there is to it.

[Lucas]

21 minutes ago, Stan said:

Because the angles have to be right and sometimes the perspective isn't there from certain angles.

Ideally, for the above to work without lines, we'd need the kind of cameras they have at the Olympics in 100m races which moves on a bar to determine, at the end if necessary, who wins a race if it's very close to being level.

My point being that you have to have cameras in line with the last line of defence/or above the linesman moving constantly. At the moment we have an aerial angle on most VAR pictures which could show  a player to be on/off but bring it down to a level that's actually in line with the players/linesman and it can be a totally different picture. 

I understand about the camera perspective but we don't have them so I can only judge on what we do have.

If its not that obvious from the angles provided, you make a judgement call. The question the VAR official should ask is, 'is the replay enough for me to disallow the goal?'. If they are really unsure and it's that tight, award a goal.

It's not perfection but I think people will relate more to the way that a decision is made on that basis as opposed to how it's done currently.

Edited November 29, 2020 by Lucas

[LFCMike]

23 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

What do you actually think this solves apart from allowing a couple of offside goals scored by your team recently to stand? It just changes it into an argument about what qualifies as clear and obvious instead. 

The lines thing is imperfect but at least it's rooted in some sort of scientific approach. Changing it into some sort of fluffy, undefined "naked eye" criteria just opens it up to more inconsistency because you know with our current referees and probably any set of human beings that you can show them a marginal offside call and they'd be split down the middle on whether it's onside or offside.

The offside rule itself is about the only thing in football that is clearly defined. It's literally the last thing you need to be fucking around with. There are countless problems with VAR and officiating in the Premier League, I just can't see this suggestion at all that we should start introducing grey areas to one of the only black and white rules in football, it's ridiculous. The sooner we all admit that we're going to cry about it when it goes against us but there's no other sensible way to enforce the rule, the better.

Nobody has this issue with the goal line technology. Should we start allowing goals now where all of the ball hasn't crossed all of the line but it looked like it did "to the naked eye"?

A line is a line, that really is all there is to it.

Correct me if I'm wrong but i don't think there's the same issues around the accuracy of goal line technology? There's also many more variables with offside than with the simple outcome of goal line technology.

Football should never have been made this complicated

[Burning Gold]

45 minutes ago, Lucas said:

I understand about the camera perspective but we don't have them so I can only judge on what we do have.

If its not that obvious from the angles provided, you make a judgement call. The question the VAR official should ask is, 'is the replay enough for me to disallow the goal?'. If they are really unsure and it's that tight, award a goal.

It's not perfection but I think people will relate more to the way that a decision is made on that basis as opposed to how it's done currently.

I think you're naive if you think that fans will meekly accept a) decisions being made against their team with no attempt to get it right beyond a cursory glance and b) a referee's judgement on what is and isn't obviously offside. We already have reems of evidence that we won't accept a referee's view on what is and isn't obviously a foul, so I don't see why offside would be any different

[RandoEFC+]

34 minutes ago, LFCMike said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but i don't think there's the same issues around the accuracy of goal line technology? There's also many more variables with offside than with the simple outcome of goal line technology.

Football should never have been made this complicated

I agree which is why I think faffing around with the offside rule is a step in the wrong direction. A better step would be to have a 'linesman camera' that follows the ball up and down the pitch so that the VAR can look at the screenshot that is actually looking across the pitch instead of diagonally.

[DeadLinesman]

2 hours ago, Smiley Culture said:

If you’re offside, you’re offside. Regardless of by how much. You simply can’t have tolerance on some offences but not others because there’s been a nice goal scored at the end of it. It makes a mockery of the game, the laws and VAR. 

 

Isn’t there tolerances in the actual technology though? I thought I’d read somewhere it can actually be a couple of mm off dependant on the angle/time etc? Can’t have an imperfect system judging a perfect rule.

[LFCMadLad]

4 hours ago, RandoEFC said:

Offside is offside. If you want goals that are less than 3mm offside to be allowed then you're only moving the line and then when you have a goal disallowed for being 3.2mm offside you'll be getting your Kleenex out again. The offside rule is the offside rule. The way you have to wait for VAR to celebrate a goal now is a problem I don't contest but the offside rule itself is about the only rule in football that makes sense and doesn't need changing. Whether or not the technology can reliably enforce the offside rule with 100% accuracy is another debatable issue. Personally I don't think it can but there's always going to be a margin of error, whether you try and give the benefit of doubt to the attacker up to a certain threshold or you accept the current use of the technology. As much as nobody wants to see goals getting chalked off for any excuse, in this instance there has at least been a bit of consistency in how they're enforcing the offside rule. It's not high praise but it's happened to a lot of teams.

As for the number of offsides against Liverpool. We've been hearing for years as an explanation of why teams like them and Man Utd get so many penalties from fans of those clubs is that it's only because they spend more time in the opposition box and their players are harder to tackle or drawing a foul or whatever. If that's an acceptable reason then you also have to acknowledge that a team that goes on the attack more often like this Liverpool side does is also going to get caught offside more often.

All I've read about the Salah goal since yesterday is "his toe was offside" or "he was only just offside". If his toe, which he can score with, is offside, then he is offside, that is the rule, that has always been the rule, with or without VAR. This is how lines work. Your problem isn't with the rule, it's with the false hope you get from the flag staying down.

So yeah, just about everything surrounding the implementation of VAR is again flawed and impacts on the experience of the fans but in this instance the rule itself should be left well alone and I don't think this one thing is actually affecting results in an unfair way.

Not really because they mess about with the lines that much more, its not conclusive. We are talking mili-seconds here and technology isn't advanced enough in football to know the exact mili-second a football leaves a players foot, to the exact mili-second that a player makes his run.

Therefore, if its that close that it takes 5 minutes to start moving lines around... let the fucking game go on!! Its stupid, any fucking dullard can see that this kind of shite is ruining the game.

[LFCMadLad]

3 hours ago, RandoEFC said:

What do you actually think this solves apart from allowing a couple of offside goals scored by your team recently to stand? It just changes it into an argument about what qualifies as clear and obvious instead. 

The lines thing is imperfect but at least it's rooted in some sort of scientific approach. Changing it into some sort of fluffy, undefined "naked eye" criteria just opens it up to more inconsistency because you know with our current referees and probably any set of human beings that you can show them a marginal offside call and they'd be split down the middle on whether it's onside or offside.

The offside rule itself is about the only thing in football that is clearly defined. It's literally the last thing you need to be fucking around with. There are countless problems with VAR and officiating in the Premier League, I just can't see this suggestion at all that we should start introducing grey areas to one of the only black and white rules in football, it's ridiculous. The sooner we all admit that we're going to cry about it when it goes against us but there's no other sensible way to enforce the rule, the better.

Nobody has this issue with the goal line technology. Should we start allowing goals now where all of the ball hasn't crossed all of the line but it looked like it did "to the naked eye"?

A line is a line, that really is all there is to it.

Goal line technology is different, its a static line, not a moving one. You can't compare the two.

[RandoEFC+]

13 minutes ago, LFCMadLad said:

Goal line technology is different, its a static line, not a moving one. You can't compare the two.

Goal line technology has a margin for error as well.

The crux of the argument is the same though. People are basically complaining that the decisions they are making are too accurate. I get elements of the arguments made and I've acknowledged those but nobody can provide a better alternative than doing it by the human eye or a 5cm margin of error which basically amounts to either moving the line which causes the same problem, or "when it's close, just let one person make it up" which is what we always had in the past and it caused just as many arguments, with the added downside that the decisions were wrong much more often.

There's loads of valid things to complain about in this thread, but offside goals getting correctly ruled out for offside isn't one of them.

[LFCMadLad]

1 minute ago, RandoEFC said:

Goal line technology has a margin for error as well.

The crux of the argument is the same though. People are basically complaining that the decisions they are making are too accurate. I get elements of the arguments made and I've acknowledged those but nobody can provide a better alternative than doing it by the human eye or a 5cm margin of error which basically amounts to either moving the line which causes the same problem, or "when it's close, just let one person make it up" which is what we always had in the past and it caused just as many arguments, with the added downside that the decisions were wrong much more often.

There's loads of valid things to complain about in this thread, but offside goals getting correctly ruled out for offside isn't one of them.

I honestly don't think there was ever this many arguments (literally every game) before VAR mate. 

Conversations are now suffocated with it. Was never this bad.

[Stan]

Think there was plenty of conversation just about totally different stuff (not VAR officials). Ironically offside decisions, penalty decisions, red cards. There's probably no way to actually evidence whether there was less chat during or post-game. Plenty of contentious decisions were chatted about. 

What is frustrating VAR was hopefully going to limit the controversies and cause less 'debate' or arguments about it. Definitely not done that! 

[Dan+]

Said it before and I'll say it again but the pros (a gradual increase in correct decisions) are nowhere near outweighing the cons (killing the best moments in football).

[Lucas]

Again, classic example. 

One line is on Watkins elbow, one line is the defender's shoulder.

Not only that, but Watkins was being fouled and it was missed?

It's so hard to comprehend.

Edited November 30, 2020 by Lucas

[Rick]

 Not even being able to draw the line in the correct place