Yeah and even he looked much better initially
Its useless. The VAR officials are either re reffing or so cowardly that they just support their mates on the pitch.
The Duran decision was dreadful. But the official wasnât up for overturning. It was a clear example of how the technology should be used.
The lenght of time on both offside decisions in our match was unbelievable.
The Gakpo decision seemed to be a bit of âlets find something wrong hereâ. The Jones goal seemed clear to me that he was on from the outset. What was VAR looking for in that instance?
VAR is a process that should make the game more honest.
Instead, its made it worse.
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As I posted in the match thread, if it takes so long to make a decision itâs better to just let the goal stand. It really looked like the officials were doing everything they could to get our goals chalked off.
There should be a time limit on VAR interventions. If nothing conclusive is found and shown, both on the big screens and on TV, after 30 seconds, the on-field decision should stand.
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Once again, VAR gets the blame for human error.
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That doesnât make sense. What is VAR if it isnât a human-operated system? 
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No it doesnât.
The errors or biased calls are made by officials, not by the technology.
Surely thatâs clear?
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VAR is a predominantly human-operated system. Itâs not equivalent of Hawkeye in tennis which is now fully automated (no line judges any more).
More akin to video umpires. But cricket is far better at it than football.
Even now VAR officials get offside calls wrong. And in cricket there is zero ego involved in overturning on field calls. In football this is a documented problem. They donât want to step on their mateâs toes.
And a huge problem was clearly highlighted by the ref piping up on broadcast about the Spurs youngster not getting clearly warranted second yellow. YOU DO NOT REF BASED ON MATCH SITUATION oR CONTEXT!! A yellow (or red) should be the same regardless of time of match (no reds given to Fulham players against us coz it was too early) or context/scoreline (Spurs are losing, they donât need a player sent off). And VAR does absolutely nothing to redress these obvious errors.
Literally against the letter of the laws of football. Itâs an absolute joke.
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I hate to be pedantic Q, as you know, but you wrote âitâs uselessâ, which sounds like the thing rather than the personnel.
Forgive me if I misunderstood.
I hate to be pedantic, but I fleshed out that comment.
No apology needed.
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I guess what I find problematic, and I certainly donât mean that you do it, is the way that fans often say âbloody var againâ or âI hate varâ, when what they should be saying is âI hate shoddy officiatingâ.
Commentators are especially guilty of continually questioning the use of var while letting the officials get away with bad decisions over and over again.
There just isnât enough scrutiny of the systematic issues with reffing in the PL and the glaring need for substantive change.
I know we agree on that.
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This season in particular⌠it seems like the greenhorn referees are officiating the game, while those judged more senior or experienced are guiding proceedings from Stockley ParkâŚ
The referees and VAR⌠are incompetent, because Howie has not one clue how to manage his staff personnel - Solve the problem that is Howie Ego, and the whole system will improve
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Last i heard , there are people who are part of the VAR system.
So itâs the system at fault. Even if itâs a manpower issue.
An alternative way of looking at it is that they can blame on-field mistakes on inexperienced referees while legitimising senior officialsâ corruption by citing VAR as âevidenceâ.
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Hating VAR is still the valid thing to say. The tech is bargain basement-level in terms of sophistication. Itâs not like itâs fully automated/AI-driven for example. Itâs not ChatGPT or Google AI making the decisions. Itâs just one level above CCTV analysis. Without the video refs themselves VAR is just a fancy video analysis kit. Itâs less than useless without the operators.
Scrapping VAR doesnât mean weâll never use tech in football. Look how great the goal line tech is for example. Nobody questions that. At all.
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To get the best performance from someone, there is a need to create a form of competition. In the referees world, there is absolutely none, it is a case of the weak protecting the weaker
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Yeah, itâs the definition of a closed shop.
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The problem now has become that referees can hide behind the VAR system for bad calls, because they know that their mates up in the booth will not contradict their on field errors most of the time (Rodri handball penalty vs Everton, Doku high boot assault on Alexis in the penalty area, Odegaard slap ball at Anfield). And furthermore, VAR actually made many instances worse. A number of times, when the on field referee has got the decision right, VAR Inexplicably got him to go look at the video, often times in either still pictures or very slow motion, which causes significant distortion of the facts on field. For example, when Jones got sent off last year away at Spurs or the Jimenez armpit âhandballâ the resulted in a bullshit penalty for City vs Wolves. So at this point VAR is making overall refereeing materially worse, and itâs doing the same for the fansâ in-game experience with the incessant delays for ridiculously minute offside calls.
If we are saying that the problem is that PGMOL is a closed shop and their incompetence/natural regional biases/whatever else is causing them to perform at a clearly substandard level, then taking away VAR is one step closer to solving the problem. Because then they canât turn around and say âoh look, VAR said it was okay so I guess it was okay and you guys are complaining about nothingâ. The scrutiny will be squarely on their on field decisions and eventually the natural conclusion that these ref need to be replaced or the system needs to be revoked so that underperforming refs will be demoted or just removed from the system will become inevitable.
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I want to add to your discussion that I - being born in the 60ties - spent the largest part of my football-loving life with errors by the refs. Every now and the we were screaming âfraudâ on the terraces and only hours later in the âSportschauâ we found out wether we or the ref was right. And guess what ? it was perfectly ok, because ( although it sounds silly ) it really evened out in the long term. A fault to our disadvantage was followed by one that helped us weeks later. And we happily lived with it. I personally would want these days with close to no technology back.
No long breaks, no attacking situations which should have been stopped for offside a minute agoâŚ
It was more fluid and although it might sound astonishing there were far less grudges against individual refs or the refereeing system. Although that might have to do with the better standard of refereeing in the German leagues.
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The trouble is that incidents are replayed instantly now, from multiple angles and at varying speeds.
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Exactly. And not being aware that this kind of trouble could even exist we got over it quickly. And life did go on. A very sound and healthy fatalism I would call it. And of course good material for hours of talking after the game 
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