On the whole, VAR has improved the accuracy of decisions. Something like 80% correct decisions without VAR last year and now above 90%.
Yes there is still the odd issue - with regards to offside I think they've gone a bit overboard with all this measuring armpit bollocks. Whatever happened to the advantage being with the striker. Certainly stop the blatant offside errors but Firmino's goal and Sheffield United's goal last weekend should have stood IMO.
The biggest issue seems to be with the new handball rule and how it's being interpreted.
Unsurprisingly I don't think the Trent thing was handball.
Under the laws of the game if Aguero had smashed the ball in it would have been ruled out because the attacker used his hand. Accidentally or not that wouldn't have been allowed. That also ruled out the possibility of them getting a penalty seconds later. They would have gained an advantage following a handball inside the area.
As it was, VAR deemed Trent's handball to be accidental because it came off a deflection off someone's hand.
That's the only decision that you can decide on. For me it was an accidental handball by Trent, I'm sure for City and United and Everton fans it was deliberate.
VAR said it wasn't deliberate so play continued.
VAR is not perfect at all, but it's much better than leaving games to the whims of the officials on the pitch. Sky and BBC used to pad out their football programs highlighting the referees 'mistakes' and now in their absence they have to fill airtime with rants over VAR.
Overall, the league table 'lies' less now than it used to.
I saw people say before the season started, that VAR was only going to benefit the big clubs. We've seen throughout the season that every big club has seen decisions go against them, so that clears that up.
When you look at the TAA incident now, it's all in slow motion. Before it strikes him, Lovren is already appealing about the Silva handball. When I saw it live, I couldn't see who handled it, but I did see Oliver instantly wave the appeals by whoever away. He saw everything at full speed and he said no. I think you could make an argument for a penalty and against it, but on balance I think the decision made, was the correct one. Play on.
Before this season, I always thought tight offside calls were there to protect the defender, in the same way as challenges on the goalkeeper usually were free kicks. Moss was in the headlines again for the Spurs v Sheffield Utd incident, but I think for a change he got it right. The forward's foot is in front of the last defender. It may only be 1mm, but it still gives the forward an advantage, which they then took full advantage of. It took a bit of time to spot it, but it was spotted and however long it takes, that goal has to be ruled out.
Next week is the 10th Anniversary of Henry in Paris, a goal given despite 2 handballs and 2 offsides in the same move. The restart was held up for about 5 minutes while the ref dealt with 11 Irish Buffons, and yellow cards. The whole world saw what happened by the restart except those in the stadium. It effectively ended the ref's career at the highest level. It may happen again this week, as 10 years on, there is still no system to review incidents during qualifiers, and with 50-60 qualifiers in Europe over the next week, somebody somewhere is going to be affected. But it's a timely reminder why technology is absolutely essential to weed out the cheats and the conmen at the highest level of the game.
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