Football – 2023/24 Season

There’s only one team deserve to win this and it’s certainly not us

Edit: right on cue 🙄

😂😂😂😂😂

Well played Coventry 👏👏 deserved that goal. Shame.

Fabulous end to end goal. Class!

EDIT: BOOO!

FI_ICK VAR

I predict Antony to miss a pen

VAR really does kill the drama

Ah dammit, think I cheered that goal more than I’ve cheered any of my own teams goals this season 🤣

hahahahahahahaha

WTF Casemiro

I really feel for Coventry. Such a great effort. Deserved more from the game.

And now we get to get battered by City in the final again

How can you say there is a God?

How can you say there is a God?

Crazy. Football robbed of a legendary fairytale – and justice – by VAR.

Coventry were robbed there.

Now we get the the chance to get absolutely taken apart by Citeh again

Ugh. My anyone but City policy is going to be sorely tested.

Really hate the way they show the VAR offside decisions now, from an angle with the lines barely differentiated, it just makes it look dodgy even though it isn’t. I hope the way the semi automated system is implemented next year gives a much clearer graphic of the decision.

At least it gives ten hag more time to get it right 😁

Sodding hell – drove up into the Peak to pick up LittleMissMC listening to the first half on the radio, Man U 2-0 up and sounded like they were all over Coventry, so when she got in the car I let her put her playlist on……

Got home just as VAR disallowed Coventry’s fourth. WTF!

As a Coventry fan I feel robbed 🙁

I suppose VAR ensured we got the right decision and that’s all of us want isn’t it?

Is it ****!

If they are going to use VAR this way for offside decisions then I think there needs to a +/- not they were 1mm offside, that if they were less 100mm offside then VAR doesn’t flag it & it’s in the margin for error.

I agree with that ^ but then of course you’ll still have the argument of whether they were 102mm offside.

To which the answer is that it’s beyond margin for error then – the margin for error is (say) 50mm and we already allow twice that so they should have been flagged anyway, the 2mm makes no odds really

Needs to be a ‘clear and obvious’ error to overturn a goal, otherwise the decision on the pitch stands.

Getting the micrometer out and squinting at lines drawn on a still image taken at an angle from a 24 fps broadcast where even the precise moment the ball is played may not be captured is just nonsense. There’s enough of a margin of error to render the entire exercise a waste of time.

If the VAR can see the error clearly on the first replay of the action, fine, let them intervene. If he needs to take a couple of minutes running through it frame by frame, he’s about as likely to come up with the correct decision as the on-field ref.

Even using this as an example – the defender is already running back, the attacker is turning to begin his run. In the space of one frame of footage, that equates to potentially several centimetres difference in position in favour of the attacker, and yet we are expected to accept millimetres of difference on the image.

Needs to be a ‘clear and obvious’ error to overturn a goal, otherwise the decision on the pitch stands.

Fine in principle and certainly sensible for matters of opinion like fouls but linesmen have pretty much stopped making on field decisions for offside

To be fair, the only part of VAR that works pretty well is offside, yes being a toenail offside is infuriating for the team and fans, but it’s against the release of the pass and the position on the players, of course it’s not 100%, but it’s a lot more defined than the VAR assistants re-refereeing games by showing refs a static picture of a specific angle, it always seems to be the worst possible appearance, as someone once said about VAR, with the freeze frame and angle, the VAR assistant can make a peck on the cheek look like a porno 🤣

To be fair, the only part of VAR that works pretty well is offside, yes being a toenail offside is infuriating for the team and fans, but it’s against the release of the pass and the position on the players, of course it’s not 100%,

That’s the whole point though, if the judgement has been made on millimetres in a still photo, it’s as worthless as the on-field instant decision because of the potential margins of error.

Linesmen not making on-field decisions is the unintended consequence of having someone in a back-room in Bedfordshire available to look at game-changing moments.

Linesmen not making on-field decisions is the unintended consequence of having someone in a back-room in Bedfordshire available to look at game-changing moments.

They are, it’s just that the guidance says not to flag, allow play to develop and then flag (or not) at a point where you won’t influence the outcome.

So as per yesterday’s type of scenario, if the lino thought that was offside, they wouldn’t flag. Allow play to go on and see what happens…. goal scored, then flag for offside because that’s what they thought. VAR (with all its imperfections) then decides. It’s important the lino still makes a decision though because there has to be evidence to overturn, otherwise stay with on field.

If they flag at point of the apparent offence, and the player stops, or hesitates, and play is influenced and THEN on review it was wrong – well, chance could be gone by then.

If it’s absolutely clearcut, then they can flag anyway.

The process is actually sound despite the arguments. It breaks down when toenail-sized measurements are needed, hence there should be more benefit of doubt to attackers, etc. And also there’s the possibility that in the ensuing play, that shouldn’t be happening because it was offside, a player is injured or whatever. But that’s a real edge case.

So with what is said above applying it to a scenario like yesterday – Lino doesn’t flag, but flags after the goal is scored VAR gets involved.

Lino doesn’t flag at all – VAR stays schtum, unless they’ve missed someone who is clearly offside.

There is definitely part of me that wonders if Utd scored that last minute winner then VAR might not’ve got involved,

VAR stays schtum, unless they’ve missed someone who is clearly offside.

Define “clearly offside”, that’s the only issue. What you described is what happens except with ‘clearly’ removed. If it’s close VAR reviews and then tries to judge with mm precision something that can’t be adequately judged at that precision.

I mean – define ‘when the ball is played’

The ball is squishy, a foot flexes, do you measure from when it first makes contact? Or contact is broken again? Halfway between? ISTR contact between a golf ball and club is about 1/200 of a second and that’s a hard ball and hard clubface, maybe a foot and football is like 5x that? 1/40 of a second? Not a lot but if a player is running at 8-10m/s (Mbappe can do 10.6) that equates to 800/40 = 20cm. A player could be just onside when the ball is kicked but 20cm offside when it leaves the foot again.

If lino is confident of offside, they should flag it. Yes, that will lead to situations where a promising attack is halted, but in my mind it’s better for fans to momentarily grumble about that than have the emotion of celebrating an historic goal cut short by a decision so marginal that you really can’t be confident about it.

Every little thing – the frame rate, the resolution, the angle (does the line get narrower as it gets further away?) and even the question of whether the pitch is perfectly flat makes a decision involving a few mm more questionable. Probably impossible for the VAR to draw a pixel-width line that sits exactly at the end of a player’s boot, or to find a video frame which marks exactly when the ball was played.

Even this, from the PL itself.

Firstly, for marginal offside decisions, after the one-pixel lines are applied, the VAR puts on the thicker broadcast lines and where they overlap, those situations will now be deemed as onside.

Can we see any evidence of a gap between the two lines?

If lino is confident of offside, they should flag it. Yes, that will lead to situations where a promising attack is halted, but in my mind it’s better for fans to momentarily grumble about that than have the emotion of celebrating an historic goal cut short by a decision so marginal that you really can’t be confident about it.

I disagree, officials would be vilified for stopping an attack that is later shown to be onside.

The issue isn’t the process, it’s that the technology isn’t good enough to go to one pixel lines. As I said before, we need a clear water type ruling, so anywhere up to say 100mm offside by the technology is still considered onside. Then any arguments about whether it was 98mm or 102mm is irrelevant because they already had benefit of the doubt and some.

Can I just say that 5 years ago today, I was at VP watching Villa play Millwall in the Championship.

On Saturday I’ll be at VP watching Villa play Chelsea in a game that could all but secure us 4th place and UCL next season.

5 days later we’ll be in a Euro Semi-final.

It’s why we all love the game. It doesn’t matter how crap things are, there’s always the chance that glory is around the corner.

Long time Villa fan, started going when I was six, I’m 52 now. I’ve had some great times over the years but the last twenty years in the wilderness have been miserable, I’ve watched some dross. It’s the hope that gets you isn’t it? Weirdly, for the first time for as long as I can remember I will miss the next two games due to prior commitments, no Chelski or Olympiakos for me. I guess I’m not used to this degree of success and normally expect us to be out of any cup competitions and definitely not challenging at the top of the league. I need to find a bar in Palma, Majorca. Any suggestions?

Just listen to the commentary via Villa TV on the club website. I had to do it in The Canaries last month. It’s old school, like listening on WM or BRMB 😀

That’s not a bad shout I guess, although if it’s Mark Regan it can be a bit of a hard listen.

How **** is this? (Rights management)

“While Topps holds the overall rights, Panini retains aspects of rights relating to some teams, the Times reported, meaning five of the teams, including England, can be shown in their kit only by Panini.

In addition, Panini holds the rights to individual players meaning Topps has been forced to fill out squads with other players. For England, Luke Thomas features, who has never been selected.”

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/apr/22/top-england-players-missing-from-official-euro-2024-sticker-album

Given Ten Hags comments today on the ‘great performance to be proud of’ on Sunday, he seems to be giving Liz Truss a run for her money in the ‘utterly delusional and quite possibly completely mad’  stakes

I’ve never seen Truss & Ten Hag in the same room together. Makes you think eh?

Id be interested in knowing what the wider footballing world thinks of Forests latest drama, amatuer hour from a fed up petulant owner or the flag bearer for disgruntled fans Prem wide?

Think folk are fed up, especially the Forests and Everton’s who are also being penalised by the whole FFP debacle as well.

VAR should benefit the game, but the whole issue about ‘interpretation’ of handballs, contact, etc is ruining it, especially when you have the VAR assistant provide a freeze frame of the worst angle, so providing a pretty one sided argument.

Don’t think i see a match go by now without some weird VAR intervention, or a lack of an intervention when the referee has made a decision that’s a bit suspect, they’re all defending each others decisions by backing them 99% of the time, and i always say, having referees being in charge of VAR is a recipe for disaster, they are trained to ref a game, not provide data to a referee to assist decisions that are easier with that data, rather than overruling them.

I’m Forest and it’s been relentless to the point of me wanting to give up and go ride the bike instead.

It’s not even the slight differences in judgement, it’s Toney moving the ball (and foam a yard) and scoring off a free kick, it’s the Boly getting sent off when the Bournemouth player stamped on him, and the 10 mins added at home to Man U when they’re chasing the game, I used to think the conspiracies where all nonescence but I’m about done with it.

I get it’ll even itself out over a season usually, and rival fans won’t mark our lot as saints but just seems to be never ending at the moment.

On balance, VAR hasn’t really stopped the vilification of match officials, or endless re-runs of controversial decisions. It’s just transferred those officials to a windowless room in West London.

If anything, clubs and fans are behaving worse towards VAR officials – case in point being the Notts Forest tweet pretty much libelling the VAR from their game at the weekend.