Arsenal were furious after the decision to award Newcastle United’s goal against them last weekend.
The Gunners believe the ball had crossed the line in the build-up to the goal and that Gabriel was fouled. This incident is the latest in a long list of controversial decisions that have gone against them this season.
VAR is consistently under pressure to make the right calls, and Arsenal’s recent struggles with the technology were so frustrating that the club released a statement backing its manager, who had expressed his frustration after the game.
The Gunners are now prepared to take things further, and according to the Daily Mail, in the upcoming meeting between the clubs and the referees, Arsenal will present the officials with a dossier of all the decisions that have gone against them.
Hopefully, they will receive some explanations, but Arsenal is no longer willing to remain silent about the numerous mistakes made in their matches that have cost them points.
Just Arsenal Opinion
Winning any game in the Premier League is tough, but when the VAR makes a mistake and it costs you points, that makes it so much worse.
The officials must start to get the decisions right with the aid of VAR or ditch the technology for good.
I would’ve thought we’ve done something similar in our previous meetings.
All-round Arsenal was not good .I don’t see why Raya is a goalkeeper cause make emistakes verytim Newcastle our coach keep playing him .it must first cost a lot then will be to late for us
I would think every club, bar city and newcastle, could produce a dossier.
I wonder why that is?!
Well I know why Ken.
It is entirely because the advent of VAR has been an unmitigated disaster from its very beginning and has now been a longer running farce than many of the great farces of that actor Brian Rix, who appeared in countless excellent ones.
I have personally directed many theatre farces but would not touch footballs VAR farce with a bargepole.
I would however gladly kill it and I would do so this very moment, if only I had the power. Possibly footballs most disastrously stupid decision ever to introduce VAR
THAT is why!
But why haven’t city or newcastle seen such decisions go against them?
VAR is simply a piece of machinery that records events, much like the camera, or the film industry uses.
The prototype has been around since the 1900’s in one form or another and, there were those who could use such items to record historical events, such as the Berlin Olympics, the assassination of J. F Kennedy, the 9/11 disaster, the world cup win in 1966, winning the rugby world cup, the funeral of Princess Diana… the list is endless.
The bottom line for the above though, is that it was people who had been trained in a professional way in order to ensure it was used properly, along with the fact that they knee about whatever it was they were filming.
Fast forward to the introduction of VAR to the PL and the people who were using it… were they trained properly?
For instance, were they trained to draw a simple line, in order to determine offside – did they know that putting two hands on the back of an opponent, was a foul and, by using VAR, could determine if that was the case in seconds?
The simple answer is they were not… hence the number of letters being sent to clubs, apologising for mistakes…. not mistakes made by the machinery, but by the people who use them.
So the PGMOL, our self regulatory referees organisation have put people in front of the screens, who took over four minutes to decide a goal was offside, when anyone who knows the rules, could tell it was offside in, what, twenty seconds?
You have called the system corrupt and cheating, but machines don’t cheat or corrupt.
Every other sport that uses var, has made a success of it, because it is used correctly by people who follow the rules…. that is why the PGMOL have failed to do the same.
If you put someone behind the wheel of a car, with no experience, and tell them to negotiate a roundabout, it’s a disaster waiting to happen and THAT is what has happened to var in the PL… plus there is no punishment for those who get it wrong.
Anthony Taylor was banished from the PL last week in order to show the fans that Howard Webb was taking control of the situation… today, just days after this show of strength, it has been announced that said Mr Taylor is to referee this weekends PL game between Manchester United and Chelsea.. do you blame var for this as well?
You should just give up explaining the blatantly obvious Ken, for whatever reason some can’t understand the obvious.
Agreed Ken but the camera can’t record and lines not drawn when bodies are in the way, as was in that particular instance. I’ve yet to see an unobstructed view of the scene. Hawkeye would have sorted the “ball out” for shure, yet they won’t use it for some reason, not even in the World Cup.
Jax, but var did show that Gabriel had been pushed in the back, so why was the “goal” allowed to stand, if the rule book was followed?
Yeah Ken, no missing that. Both feet off the ground and pushing downward. That was the most obvious of the three issues, as the others couldn’t be determined accurately with the current tech.
Ken just to clarify something I wrote a day or so ago about which you tried to trip me up.
I wrote that VAR has cheated us. You then asked when I had changed my mind to now say refs are cheats.
I have NOT CHANGED my former view at all. We were CHEATED by gross inefficiency, just as you describe above, with which I have ALWAYS AGREED. That is NOT the same as saying pitch refs set out deliberately to cheat us. I have never thought that and still do not.
So no change in my longheld position that since its inception in 2019, VAR has been an unmitigated disaster and I put that down to, yes, gross inefficiency AND the fact that ALL humans make errors.
To deny that FACT is unthinking, pie in the sky stupidity, and a failure to recognise our common human condition. That human fallibility includes all players, all managers, all fans, all humans everywhere on the planet too.
The wrong headed idea when it began was to assume that mere technology would eradicate human error.
PALPABLY, it has NOT done so.
In other sports, VAR or the equivalent also sometimes makes errors but in THOSE SPORTS, fans are not like football fans, who are constantly seeking to destroy refs by hideous and dishonest claims of them being individually and deliberately dishonest Which means cheats .
The supreme irony is that virtually EVERY player cheats and virtually every fan is biased toward their own club and therefore any TRUE fan judgement is tainted by bias. That includes me of course as I too am merely human and therefore prone to error. The other mistake in expectations when VAR arrived was to FOOLISHLY deny all human history and expect, laughable so, PERFECTION!!
THAT WAS NEVER ON THE CARDS, as I wrote back then and have said ever since The obvious solution was to WAIT, until artificial intelligence could take over, in its entirety, all VAR, with NO HUMAN INVOLVEMENT AT ALL.
In the meantime, til that arrives and is in place, we fans OUGHT to accept the pitch refs decision as final, right or wrong, as happened throughout our football history til 2019.
Though if you, in biased fashion, automatically assume that all refs ARE CHEATS, which they are not, then naturally you wont have faith in any of them.
But the fair minded fans among us will gladly get rid of VAR right now – or at seasons end- and return to accepting the HONEST individual pitch refs decisions!
As for what really MIGHT happen- as all the above is merely what I and a minority of others on JA WANT to happen – there is now such a widespread general outcry about the weekly VAR Prem farces, that there must be a serious chance that those in charge pause it for a while and return to sanity.
Jon, what would I want to trip you up?
You also used the word “corrupt” and I assume you used that, not at any individual referee, but how decisions being made, are corrupting the game of football?
I have never used the word “cheat” by the way, unless you can show I have?
It is interesting that you don’t answer the point that var doesn’t” cheat” or “corrupt” the system, but untrained and / or inefficient personnel are!!
Very interesting that you are now saying that football fans are trying to destroy referees – why would they want to do that?
Most educated, sensible fans know that the game would not exist without referees, but that doesn’t mean we have to accept wrong decisions.
The weekly outcry regarding var decisions, is because these mistakes are so blatantly wrong and, if the rules were followed, they would happen.
Simple things like drawing a line to see if offside had occurred, or a push in the back should rule out a “goal.”
Remember those tackles in the city game?
I understand that a referee might miss some of these examples, but those working var obviously didn’t, as they held up the game to look at them… and then dismissed them!!!
Finally, you say fans are only interested in their own club.
HOW WRONG YOU ARE!!
I suggest you go online and read what fans of every club are saying about the PGMOL and it’s use of VAR.
All we want, is for the rules to be followed and common sense to be used…. as they are in all the other sports that used var in one form or another.
That, of course, is what Mikel Arteta, Jurgen Klopp etc are asking for.
Before VAR, 82% of decisions in a game were correct. VAR introduced 94% of decisions are correct. Lets go back to why it was changed in the first place and rely on shit refs. No thank you. More referees are accountable now than ever before. More referees are dropped and suspended now than ever before. I remember with sadness how bad it really was.
Your point about being accountable only goes so far unfortunately. It seems that glaring errors are not punished sufficiently and the same gormless officials are back again in no time at all. It’s been said heaps of time that the PGMOL are allowed to self regulate which is bonkers.
I get your frustration that before VAR mistakes were more common but from the outset this system has been beset not by facts on the screen but by flawed interpretations. Why is a ‘slight’ push not a foul in the box? It’s still a push. No wonder players go to ground like they’ve been shot, writhing about clutching their faces when it’s nothing of the sort. Why can’t a straightforward offside be called in seconds rather than minutes. Such is the diabolical reputation of the operators that they seem paralysed by fear.
To me, there needs to be an urgent review and I don’t blame Arsenal or any other club from demanding one.
Im not frustrated at all Sue, im very happy that more decisions are correctly administered and delivered and more refs are accountable. Its not perfect but for me a lot better.
The thing is Sue, the games i have watched, where they dont have VAR, I find it annoying how many things are missed and i dont enjoy watching them as much because of poor decisions.
The PL clubs have had the option to use semi-automated offside tech (as used in the World Cup), but have turned it down, due to concerns that it will soon be outdated. Just imagine how it would have sorted that offside at Newcastle which was virtually impossible to see as both Gabriel & Joelinton were in the camera’s line of sight, also preventing the lines being accurately drawn.
PGMOL is jointly owned by The FA, Premier League and The Football League, and was formed due to criticisms of referees. You have thought by now that they would have been more accountable to their employers and given certain edicts to get it right or get out, or is that why Mike Riley stood down?
They are more accountable. More refs are demoted and dropped than ever before VAR. And im more than happy that the 20% wrong decisions by refs only has gone down to 5% under VAR. We would all like 100% but while humans are involved that wont ever happen.
Standards have improved for sure (they couldn’t have got much worse), but these % stats are issued by PGMOL themselves as I understand it. Seems like a case of marking their own homework to me.
You are correct Jax and wasn’t it Mike Riley who said that his members were getting 96% of major decisions correct, without supplying any data to back that statement up?
Of course, he didn’t have to, as he couldn’t be challenged!!
Yep, the very same Riley who created a closed shop. It’s gone the other way now though, into a Webb & Owen panto.
Reggie, demoted?
If missing one round of PL games, before being reinstated, or being sacked from var duties to be reemployed a few weeks later, satisfies you, then so be it.
No ken, more refs have been put down because of mistakes. More decisions are correct. If those figures were put out by Riley, i dont know about that but i read a year ago, by someone doing investigations into result and nothing to do with PDMOL and they were actually better. VAR is here to stay ken, it needs work and may change in more ways but its not going anywhere.
PGMOL.
Oh I agree var is here to stay, but being demoted for one game and being fired then hired again, within weeks, for not drawing a line to check for offside is not punishment, it’s a slap on the wrist.
There have been more than that ken.
Tell me about them then Reggie, as I can’t remember any others.
Watch the Napoli game and their disallowed goal, the review and the outcome – that’s how var should be used correctly!!