He’s a likeable, obviously well-educated and erudite youngish Premier League manager in his forties. His fans idolise him even when things go wrong for the team and their supporters. As they often do, seemingly ever-increasingly in the second half of this season.
And did I feel sorry for him at the weekend? Yes I did, I really did. Because of the monstrous regiment of VAR. I’ve never seen anything quite like this in my life and never wish to again.
Yes Eddie Howe I feel for you. Not only did Bournemouth have a perfectly good Josh King goal struck out against Burnley but everyone’s favourite Stockley Park “celebrity” Mike Dean was ordered to bring everything back for a Burnley penalty converted by Jay Rodriguez. Fair play to Mr Dean in a way – he wasn’t the Politburo monitor on this occasion.
What, in the name of any deity you might for some strange reason believe in, allowed this to happen?
I’m no Bournemouth fan – when it comes to their history, infrastructure and ownership I do kind of wonder what they are doing in aforementioned Premier League anyway.
But c’mon, where’s the justice in that?
With my cards on the table, I don’t have much time for Man Citeh either.
I’m quite ambivalent about Brendan Rodgers to be honest. I liked him at Celtic and he’s always managed to keep the ship steady at Leicester. Very steady in all honesty.
You’ll all know the incidents in that match I’m referring to as in the “collision” between City keeper Ederson and Leicester’s Kelechi Iheanacho [with no interference from VAR] and the handball that wasn’t from Foxes defender Dennis Praet. How do you dodge a thunderba$tard like that while retaining your teeth fer Chrissakes?
It’s the instinct of self-preservation. I recently had all my teeth out under general anaesthetic but my reaction would have been just the same as that of Praet. Ridiculous, although Kasper Schmeichel saved the resulting weak pen from Sergio Aguero and justice was served.
Then there was the Kevin De Bruyne “handball”.
Over to Rodgers:
“I don’t think VAR is the problem, it’s the interpretation. There’s a lot to improve.”
Pep Guardiola [relieved at least about the result] contributed: “I have found some of the recent decisions made by VAR weird“.
But it is looking increasingly unlikely that VAR will be of any concern to Norwich City Football Club next season. That seems a bit quirky in itself as ourselves and probably Watford and Villa will have all the tech in place to continue it with a rumoured £9.5k match fee, something all three relegated clubs could comfortably afford. Not so sure about the likes of Rotherham though unless Warney is a fan, which I doubt.
Personally I hope NCFC rips the lot out and if they do I’ll take it to Swanton Road for free. Other recycling centres are available.
Well done to all concerned with England Rugby, Tyson Fury the self-styled Gypsy King and every single person involved with Oxford United FC.
The only real belly-laugh I had on Sunday was that when Match of the Day finished I kept the TV on the Andrew Marr Show until Colin Murray and Nathan Jones popped up to do their stuff on EFL on Quest, a show I’ll be scrutinising more closely next season.
Marr, a broadcaster I like, actually said and I quote: “Everyone loves a British beaver“. Jesus. And I don’t mean Citeh’s Gabriel.
Oh, by the way, I do realise that we lost 0-3 at Wolves on Sunday afternoon. I just have nothing pertinent to say on the topic beyond the fact that we have 18 points after 27 matches.
Oh $hite.
Well Martin, it would seem from reading Paddy Davitt’s player ratings yesterday that once again, we ‘failed to turn up’ and the only player to leave Molineux with a reasonable rating was Tim Krul!!
I now feel that our chances of avoiding relegation are practically nil and we can only hope that not too many players will want to leave at the end of the season.
Having said that, IMO, we have some very exciting and potentially very good players currently on loan and let’s not forget that we have Vrancic, Stieperman and last but not least – Idah on the bench.
I found Paddy’s interview with SW most interesting and as the latter states, NCFC doesn’t owe any of the players anything!!
Oh well, we now have a Friday match against the Foxes and unless the players can pick themselves up from Sunday, I fear another heavy defeat. I’d quite like to see a few changes to the starting 11, but I don’t feel that DF will be quite so radical.
IMO, we could have quite a decent first 11 next season
Krul
Byram, Zimmerman, Klose, McCullum
McLean, Tettey, Vrancic, Stieperman
Rupp, Pukki
Not forgetting Idah and Sitti
PS – I cannot remember a weekend (and Monday evening) when there have been SOOO many VARsical decisions emanating from Stockley Park. Mike Riley along with the rest of PGMOL and PL managers need to be locked away for several days at the end of the season and rewrite the interpretation of the rules and INSIST that match referee views the pitch side monitors. The initial brief was to eradicate what was ‘CLEAR and OBVIOUS ERRORS!!’ I’d love to hear them explain how a player’s armpit/toe/shoulder being offside is one and there should be a time limit of 30 seconds to come to a decision at Stockley and if they can’t reach a decision in that time then whatever the match day officials decided stands.
Hi Ed.
I was far too dispirited to write my usual post-match comments after Wolves as you might well have gathered.
I was just so angry with the way VAR “worked” at the weekend that I opted to focus on that instead – it’s descended into the realms of farce and that’s for sure.
Paddy D’s interview with Webber sure made for interesting reading and we are blessed that SW is ostensibly such an honest man. Unfortunately said honesty means we might only have [at best] another two seasons here from him.
I’m not prepared to speculate on our squad for next season – yet – but I wouldn’t think you’re too far out. I’d add Lewis, Hernandez and Trybull to your mix but the trouble is we don’t really know just how good [or otherwise] those currently loaned out might be.
Dark days just now.
Thanks as ever.
VAR is to football as Emerson Lake and Palmer were to music-horrible, detestable and in need of dismantling as soon as possible.
Wolves’ first goal looked like hand ball (it wasn’t) in the build up so their fans’ celebrations were very mooted, and there was barely a cuss to be heard around me as we were pretty sure it would be ruled out. The VAR check allowing the goal hardly caused a murmur. Late in the game Ben was VAR checked for a possible red card-I still have no idea why and I was about 20 yards from the incident.
My heart sinks every time a VAR referral is made, whether it’s a game I’m at or watching on TV. One of the most fundamental reasons for loving the game is the explosion of emotion which occurs when an incident happens-for or against your team. I had a Celtic Catholic upbringing which means I am very emotionally suppressed; the outlet that football provides being reduced could have catastrophic results!
I would be in favour of getting rid of VAR completely. I would definitely have a fanfare for this common man.
Not many players will go because no one will want to sign, well, not if they only watched them play on Sunday. Not ,many will go full stop. They’re just not good enough yet, so might as well stay here where there’ll be able to develop, rather than be a ‘bench warmer’.
Hi Andrew.
I know exactly where you’re coming from but I am sure that at the very least Ben and Max will be gone. Probably Todd too and also Emi, whose face no longer appears to fit.
Thank you.
Martin,
I’ll predict a maximum of 3 of ours stars will go because most will see the bigger picture and the club won’t necessarily sell them. More pertinently, I’d like to see those who are just NOT good enough sold. Yes, some are great in the Championship but aren’t much cop here in the PL. Success for the club I believe comes just as much from recognising who isn’t up to it, as it is from signing the right players in the first place.
A very fair point. I think most supporters could suggest a couple we could get rid of who won’t be much cop in the Championship let alone the PL!
Hi Don
I needed a laugh and your post provided it.
As I virtually sight read [not a gift, a curse] I might have missed an ELP reference or two but if your greatest fan is Jim Davidson and two of your members are deceased you know you are in bother.
I despise them also although back in the day a young lady friend of mine insisted on playing Pictures at an Exhibition at every opportunity. No wonder we didn’t last – although we did get to see LZ and the early, heavy Queen together.
Felt so sorry for Wolves players and fans tbh. You can’t even celebrate a perfectly good goal these days it would seem.
Dad was RC and mother a Proddy [no attempt at conversion] so I fell in love with Celtic reasonably independently in 1967. Best not post HH on MFW but I will anyway.
Cheers pal.
Marty, what ever happened to common sense? It should guide all human behaviour which includes football. It’s common sense to have one official in charge of a game, the ref, it’s common sense that he (?) should be official helped to make decisions, linesmen (they will always be linesmen to me), 4th official/timekeeper, and yes camera technology. But the ref makes the decision in a fair and reasonable manner (uses common sense). Good example of this is allowing play to continue when a foul has been committed, generally in an attacking situation. Offside should be clear and obvious, 50% or more of an attacking player beyond the defence line, that’s fair and reasonable common sense. Millimeter precision is vital for engineering, not necessary for football. Mistakes will happen but there are match reports and a governing body to eliminate dodgy refs. So bless the men in Black, bless ‘em all, they’ve earned their salt over the years, and we prefer a person to vent our spleen on when things appear to go wrong, not the same blaming technology.
Hi Cutty.
The idea of discussing common sense with you brings a wry old smile to my as yet untenanted gum area.
However you are spot on in every way.
Bring back the days when we could sing the “referee’s song” and all its variations at the likes of Simon Hooper and I’d kinda settle for that.
VAR could be so good but in reality it is a curse. When you feel sorry for supporters of other sides you know something is intrinsically wrong.
It’s not football any more.
Thanks.
Well said, Herr Cutz. The problem is not VAR per se, but the application of it. If PGMOL had followed the instructions/advice they were given by the European authorities, and actually applied it they Way they do elsewhere, we wouldn’t be in a situation where virtually every fan hates it. It’s the “clear and obvious” bit that isn’t being applied. As it is being used, it’s killing the game, along with the atmosphere in the ground.
Thank God that the EFL have said they have no intention of using it (at least, in the near future) as they costs are too high for the smaller teams to bear (probably meaning our near neighbours!)
Quite right Jim.
And a nice sideswipe at the Binmen to boot:-)
I am like you Martin, pleased that next season it is highly unlikely we won’t be talking about VAR.
I have to admit I thought it would be a good thing, and I thought it worked reasonably well at the World Cup.
However this season it has been a disaster, bad decision after bad decision. Clear and obvious error being ignored as are the TV monitors that are nothing more than an added decoration to the pitch side. Why the hell are they not being used…. oh hang on they were. You have guessed it, to send a “little” old Norwich Player off, let’s practice on them. (correct decision to be fair) but what about the Spurs player on Saturday whose foul was way worse than Godfreys, or Haller’s dreadful challenge on Christoph in the West Ham game ?
2 other things, Watching the game on Sky I texted my mates at the ground to say the Palace equaliser was onside ( unfortunately) it took another 30 seconds for Stockley Park to give it !
And finally Matt Le Tissier and Gary Neville say the offside system we now have is empirical evidence, except its not as it all depends on the frame rate, the Pukki offside for instance why couldn’t we have like in horse racing a photo finish with the frame rate added so we know for sure that the time the ball left Mario’s foot Teemu was definitely offside.
Stockley Park originally said the goal was disallowed because Teemu came back from an offside position before Mario’s pass, that’s called onside. Incompetence of the highest order. And it also makes you wonder if the lines they drew to “prove” Teemu was offside was to cover their backsides ?
They really don’t know what they are doing.
Hi Tim.
Possibly the worst example for me was the Haller lunge on Zimbo that you very correctly mention.
I’m not really up with the finer points of the technology but the “armpit, nasal hair, boot loop” element of offside decisions is really wearing me down.
Should a player remove his wedding band rather than tape it over in case it puts him 2 millimetres in front of the system?
VAR is open to interpretation but also abuse. I hate it.
Thanks a lot – good comment.
Couldn’t agree more Martin, and one wonders how our season may have panned out if that challenge hadn’t been made, or if justice had been correctly done (a la Godfrey v Bournemouth) and West Ham been forced to play for more than an hour with only 10 men.
And of course, the Haller challenge wasn’t even deemed worthy of any sort of review!
I’m amazed at how effective VAR is in rugby matches, and how utterly abominable it is being deployed in football!
O T B C
I was starting to think that VAR might work better in rugby because it has been deployed for much longer when I recalled that it has worked pretty well more or less from day one.
As you say the Haller incident was pivotal, which I realise more now than I did at the time.
Hi Martin
A good rant at VAR
I think the Ref watch yesterday spent to much time on the decision at Chelsea and the description of Le Celso stamping and to be honest I just don’t think it was as clear cut as VAR error.
1) Le Celso had his back to the Chelsea defence concentrating on winning the ball from another.
2) Azi who was trodden on came in low and fast and on his blindside with the intention of taking Le Celso out or at least putting the ball out of play
3) Le Celso’s foot was of the ground so Azi’s tackle could have broken his standing leg.
4) Where was Le Celso to put his foot surrounded by Chelsea players on the ground and was it clear and obvious no the Ref had his yellow card out for a foul and he booked Le Celso.
5) Azi didnt take long to recover before throwing himself into tackles so was he faking injury to get an opponent sent off.
Lastly Frankie boy and his touchline antics after the VAR decision should have warranted a Red card for continuously harassing the 4th official other managers have been sent to the stand for less is he becoming untouchable.
City v Wolves I read it is all about our defence being poor but surely it starts at the top end, many have said Pukki has been worked out, that EMI creates chances but if we are not scoring then the pressure is on the defence to stop goals going in.
Maybe the answer was with city all along Srbeny given a chance back in Germany has hit 3 in 4 games and assisted in 3 others his new/old club are now out of the relegation zone.
Does Pukki need time out of the firing line or could Idah or Drmic play with 2 up front, Farke needs to really try something different we had 52% of the play and did nothing with it v LIVARPOOL we had much less of the play yet looked a good team can’t we find a happy medium.
Onwards and upwards
OTBC
Hi Alex.
A bit of a rant it was and I’m amazed at how much I actually left out tbh. I hate VAR but more pertinently I’m at the point of being totally bemused by some of the decisions.
It’s killing the spirit of football.
Your detailed points on Spurs-Chelsea are all valid of course.
Srbeny wanted to leave us in order to get game time.
We might only have that goal at Goodison to remember him by but I’m sure we all wish him well – he could have been a good option for us in the Championship of course.
Cheers mate.
VAR was certainly abysmal at the weekend. Wales should clearly have had a penalty try, and I was staggered that the incident where Oteje and opponents carried on fighting on the ground, whilst everyone else moved on, wasn’t looked at more closely.
As far as its use in football’s concerned the mess that’s been made of both the handball and offside rules over the years is the root of the problem, not VAR. It doesn’t matter whether you leave those incidents to referees, VAR or set up a Pointless panel of 100 neutral fans, the fact is nobody can really agree on what the correct interpretation should be.
The big error at the weekend was not punishing Lo Celso. For me the most important use of VAR is dealing with that kind of contact, as it did with Ben Godfrey a few weeks ago. To make matters worse the authorities are so weak they won’t deal with it in retrospect even though the officials later admitted they’d got it wrong.
Some people seem to be saying that because VAR officials are getting decisions wrong – which they are from time to time they certainly are – it should be abandoned. But if you follow that logic you need to do away with referees and their assistants too….
Hi Keith.
An excellent point about the Rugby and I agree with you.
Everybody appreciates that referees are too human to be perfect but I firmly believe that VAR could be better than it is.
Maybe it will indeed become so. In time. Maybe.
As for the rule changes surrounding handball and the most contentious of them all [offside] I guess referees have to go with the flow. I’ve done some good jobs and some bad ones in my time but a referee I could not be.
My real beef with VAR is that is supposedly there to assist the officials and it’s not, to my mind, really having that effect.
Great comment – thanks.
Hi Keith
The Le Celso stamping yes it looked dangerous but having seen it numerous times I just wonder the way that the chelsea player came in he could gave seriously injured Le Celso in no way am I condoning the stamping but at the time he was turning with the ball and didn’t see Azi coming in, now the question is if their was no stamping Azi would have wiped out Le Celso and that could have been a red card.
In realtime it appeared to me that Lo Celso made a very nasty stamp.
I replayed the incident a couple of times afterwards and still think it was dangerous play.
What these guys do is rarely deliberate but don’t you wonder sometimes?
I’ve never seen anything like Musc**t on Craig Bellamy though, which is probably the worst challenge I have ever witnessed in professional football. Or amateur come to that and once or twice the victim was me.
I wasn’t entirely innocent myself on occasions but we all knew not to deliberately stop a guy going to work next day. Really.
Problem with var is that its not used by the match ref to get a decision right.
In rugby the ref will ask var and the tmo is there any reason I can’t give the try, is that serious foul play etc . The video is used to confirm his decision or advise him to overturn it .
In our game the off field ref comes in unasked for and makes the decision with no obvious reference to the match official . We got it so wrong in our game.
Even in cricket the umpire’s call is allowed because even when the wickets don’t move the technology ain’t perfect and cricket knows there is a built in error in the measurement. But footballs so clever it can triangulate to half a toenail
.
Hi Bernie.
One day we’ll probably get drones flying over both penalty boxes to perfectly map a “was he wasn’t he” offside call from above.
I hope it doesn’t go down that route. That there Star Trek’s got a lot to answer for.
Cheers.
To be fair you would need VAR to be used 20-30 a game – for all the tugs, pushes, trips that occur in every game of football. There is never one or two debatable incidents there are loads – therefore it is doomed to fail,
Hi Tony.
Yes and we’d probably end up with matches lasting anything up to two hours!
Don’t tell Stockley Park – they’d probably want to take you up on your idea:-)
And since the superinjunction has been lifted I think Marr can that with no sense of irony.
Ha!