With the best will in the world, we football fans tend to see things with a skewed perspective so for what it’s worth here’s a Leeds fan’s take on the two contentious decisions in today’s match:
Pickford’s tackle could have easily broken Van Dijk’s leg and it’s a long time since I’ve seen such a senseless ‘tackle’ committed by a goalie in any league. Even if the ref genuinely failed to see it, VAR should have pointed it out and asked the ref to view it on his screen. Baffling oversight.
Re the offside incident, even if the upper arm counted as an offending part of the body (which it doesn’t) at the most, Mane was level with the Everton players. How VAR came to their offside conclusion beggars belief.
With decisions like these, it’s no wonder that people are questioning whether VAR is doing the game more harm than good. Only time will tell but the powers that be can at least restore a shred of common sense and credibility with a retrospective red card and ban for Pickford.
A neutral view
posted on 18/10/20
comment by welshpoolfan (U7693)
posted 59 seconds ago
comment by D'Jeezus Mackaroni (U1137)
posted 2 minutes ago
One issue with VAR is that they have to deem something like this as an "obvious" error. If there is even the slightest grey area they can just stick with the on-field opinion, which they do more often than not.
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Yes, that is true and is another reason that it should be more transparent. You should be able to hear the conversations that the refs and the vars have so that you can hear exactly why they are giving the decisions they have.
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I think that would be going too far and opening up a can of worms. Many decisions are down to opinions and football fans in general don't accept this. If they hear referees sharing their opinions it becomes they didn't have a clue, they debated it and then decided on the wrong outcome. I think it would be easier to simply send the referee to a monitor for major decisions. VAR simply refer him to the monitor if they think he made a mistake.
posted on 18/10/20
TooR, the issue there is VAR probably didn't see it as a major decision. Seemingly they thought it was nothing more than a yellow. I reckon they saw it as a 'footballing collision' and quickly moved on from it.
posted on 18/10/20
comment by D'Jeezus Mackaroni (U1137)
posted 40 seconds ago
TooR, the issue there is VAR probably didn't see it as a major decision. Seemingly they thought it was nothing more than a yellow. I reckon they saw it as a 'footballing collision' and quickly moved on from it.
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Yes, this is probably what happened or they would have acted on it.
posted on 18/10/20
comment by There'sOnlyOneRed's (U1721)
posted 8 minutes ago
comment by welshpoolfan (U7693)
posted 59 seconds ago
comment by D'Jeezus Mackaroni (U1137)
posted 2 minutes ago
One issue with VAR is that they have to deem something like this as an "obvious" error. If there is even the slightest grey area they can just stick with the on-field opinion, which they do more often than not.
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Yes, that is true and is another reason that it should be more transparent. You should be able to hear the conversations that the refs and the vars have so that you can hear exactly why they are giving the decisions they have.
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I think that would be going too far and opening up a can of worms. Many decisions are down to opinions and football fans in general don't accept this. If they hear referees sharing their opinions it becomes they didn't have a clue, they debated it and then decided on the wrong outcome. I think it would be easier to simply send the referee to a monitor for major decisions. VAR simply refer him to the monitor if they think he made a mistake.
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Yes many decisions are made on opinions. If there are too many football fans who are unable to act lime adults and accept this, then we can continue to have everyone be outraged because they don't know why a decision was given.
Rugby manages to do it just fine and it is to the benefit of the sport and the spectators.
posted on 18/10/20
From a non neutral perspective I agree fully with the OP. Both decisions were inexcusable.
posted on 18/10/20
Ball was there to be won. Let's see how good LFC are without VVD
posted on 18/10/20
comment by 14 to West Ham (U20729)
posted 14 seconds ago
Ball was there to be won. Let's see how good LFC are without VVD
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Shame he got nowhere near the ball then isn't it?
posted on 18/10/20
the nice thing is you can clearly see the image on which the VAR "offical" made his calls.
You can even see where he's adjusted outside the rules to suit the call he wanted.
the issue is NEITHER were flagged offside so he had to go and disprove the goal and foul and he did so.
The pickford foul is indefensible yet PGMOL line up to defend it. The issue there is the guy placed the everton line first then moved on to vvd and when he found him onside he went back and moved the everton line to find him off.
Thats bad enough but he then uses manes elbow to find him millmetres offside. the rules are crystal that that part of the body cannot be used.
At least everton players had the good grace to apologise like men.
posted on 18/10/20
comment by moreinjuredthanowen (U9641)
posted 1 hour, 44 minutes ago
the nice thing is you can clearly see the image on which the VAR "offical" made his calls.
You can even see where he's adjusted outside the rules to suit the call he wanted.
the issue is NEITHER were flagged offside so he had to go and disprove the goal and foul and he did so.
The pickford foul is indefensible yet PGMOL line up to defend it. The issue there is the guy placed the everton line first then moved on to vvd and when he found him onside he went back and moved the everton line to find him off.
Thats bad enough but he then uses manes elbow to find him millmetres offside. the rules are crystal that that part of the body cannot be used.
At least everton players had the good grace to apologise like men.
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"the issue is NEITHER were flagged offside"
The VVD was definitely flagged offside. That's why the ref gave a free-kick to Everton straight away instead of a penalty to Liverpool.
posted on 18/10/20
It wasn’t from Manes elbow. The line they used went through that to his upper arm.