Oh my word! What a weekend for VAR in the Premier League. Are the video assistant referees intentionally trying to sabotage VAR so that it gets scrapped? Probably not, but as every week goes by more and more supporters from more and more clubs are getting properly cheesed-off with puzzling VAR decisions.
This weekend alone I would suggest Chelsea, Leicester and Bournemouth fans have genuine complaints.
Michael Oliver, top referee, didn’t give Lo Celso a red for his tackle on Azpilicueta. I don’t know why. Maybe he had a bad view. Anyway, this is exactly what VAR has been brought in for, to put right a mistake by the match official. The VAR referee had a different opinion to every pundit I heard talk about it, including Jeff Stelling live on Sky at the time who was certain a red would be given, and I totally agree Lo Celso should have seen red.
Leicester v Man City. The same VAR official concludes that a clear and obvious error has been made by Paul Tierney in a handball by Dennis Praet, but not in an equally clear handball by Kevin de Bruyne, and also fails to give Leicester a penalty for a foul on Iheanacho who had clearly beaten Ederson to the ball, and was then poleaxed by the keeper.
If I had done my job as poorly as the VAR referee in these two games I would be expected to be reprimanded, and I would like to think he will be seriously taken to task. He was just not good enough.
However, in my humble opinion, those two, as bad as they were, cannot hold a candle to the Burnley v Bournemouth disgrace. Now, I can understand up to a point the reluctance of the ref in Stockley Park to tell an experienced Premier League referee like Michael Oliver that he has got it clearly and obviously wrong. Backing up the match day referee’s decision would tend to be the default position. But in this match the VAR referee overruled Mike Dean, top referee, TWICE, on a handball decision. The first, a handball given against Bournemouth’s Billing, was probably the worst overrule I have seen so far this season. In my opinion the ball clearly strikes Billing’s shoulder but the VAR ref concludes Mike Dean has made a clear and obvious error and that the ball has hit Billing’s arm. Really!! And then he overrules Dean a second time by suggesting he has missed another handball and so failed to award a penalty against Bournemouth. Again the ball has struck high enough up the arm/ shoulder to conclude that Dean has not made a clear error, but again he is in Dean’s ear telling him to reverse his decision. This second mistake had the added effect of also disallowing a goal scored by Bournemouth in the seconds after the penalty incident. Those of you who read my blog last week will know this I was predicting this to happen at some point. I didn’t think it would be a mere five days later.
If I were Mike Dean I would be absolutely furious that my on-field interpretations had been overruled in such a way. I’m not in favour of referees taken even longer out of the game to jog off to look at monitors. I just want VAR referees to be give a dictionary so that they can learn what the words clear and obvious mean!