Me neither. For me it has totally ruined the game as a spectacle. Doubt I would attend our home games if they brought it into the championship. I was against DRS in cricket, but the system seems to work and gets more right than it does wrong without really ruining it for spectators and TV audience. Same in tennis and rugby. Just can't see how it's been allowed to go on this long when there are obvious flaws in the system
The offside rule was originally brought in to prevent attacking players camping out in the opponents’ half and abusing long balls over the rest of the pack. This has now been reduced to ‘we must disallow this excellent strike because the lad who assisted him was one pube offside’. Killing the spirit and tempo of the game for me.
I’m not even sure the technology combined with the application of it is truly up to the mark. For example where is the technology showing when the ball leaves the players foot when passing the ball. Given the fine margins on the offside position even a trailing lace could still be contact so they could stop the video motion too early or too soon. But hey they never polarise on that part. So at what point does the ball leave the foot. Secondly looking at Watkins incident they had part of the arm as anvalid offside body part. At which point on a players arm is classified on or off. Watkins had a short sleeve shirts so they took it from the edge of the sleeve. What if some shirt sleeves as longer, what if there is no reference point such as the edge of the short sleeve. Do they guess? Are all shirts the same? The problem is they are using imperfect technology, with imperfect interpretation to oversee an imperfect game (some of which adds the to beauty of the sport) all in the belief they can make it perfect.
Football has brought this upon itself with over-scrutiny and criticism of referees' decisions. To show multiple TV angles and call into question decisions made with much less information is simply unfair to the referees. Unless the TV companies and the game's authorities agree on a non-criticism pact then VAR is here to stay. The debate will only be about how to refine it.
I’ve said exactly the same mate, I’ve no interest in watching any premiership games anymore but managers and pundits continually blaming the decisions referees made in real time while having the benefit of multiple camera angles and slow motion, I hate VAR with a passion but you reap what you sow.
That would be no different though. 5 minute analysis while they search for one pixel of daylight. The only solution in the 21st century is a body worn sensor. It would help the ref and would be almost instant too
I think it's time to change the whole ethos of VAR to be much more like in Cricket. When ball tracking came in for cricket, all sorts of hairline decisions were being overturned, now that they have "Umpire's call" and a limit on the number of referrals, it works well. Why not just let the ref get on with it and only get VAR involved when the ref makes a VERY poor decision? And likewise allow each team to have a couple of referrals? Hairline offside decisions don't really matter in the scheme of things.
I don't really understand why the arm should even be considered; after all you can't legally play the ball with your arm. Unless you play for Brentford at Oakwell of course.
Referees making mistakes doesn't kill the game the same way as VAR though. We're seeing teams can't celebrate goals. Watching the Scotland keeper have to wait for confirmation before he could celebrate saving the pen that won them qualification summed it up. There should be a 'linesman's call' to allow for the fact that the technology can't be 100% certain that it's frozen the picture at the right time
