[bluepooch]

Shambles .Typical isnt it ,I thought it was supposed to eliminate the human error and take away the doubts .The problem is the officials cannot decide when it should be used !.Surely it should have been used on the Willian non penalty decision and if it was how come the viewer didnt know at the time ? .Also every time there's a query the players are clamouring to the ref for its usage .Teething problems I hear you say but people are getting paid good money to implement this and they cant even think it through properly .

[Lord Snooty]

Shambles. All last night's did was prove beyond doubt what a bunch of cheats Chelsea are. Great to see a referee standing up to them and VAR backing them up. The Willian one was a dive, yes there was contact, but only when he was halfway down already. Similarly the Morata one. Yes he touches him, but this is not and never has been a non contact sport. Just because you have been touched on the shoulder does not give you the right to throw yourself to the floor.

[Dancingwilldoit]

It doesn't matter if its recorded or not it still a human interpretation of the rules. All the pundits last night said the Willian incident was a pen because there was contact? I thought it was a dive and thought the ref got it bang on.
Sit 10 people in front of a TV, show a replay and you will get 10 different interpretations. The only constant will be the replay

[Devongone]

See, I thought there was both contact and it was a dive. You know you are going to be brought down before it happens quite often ...... weaving into the area you'll often be stumbling anyway ......... The attempted tackle was desperate BUT ........ The trouble is we've reached the point where the player has to go down to get a penalty. If he stands up he has NO chance of a penalty, he is berated by his team and his manager, and commentators and pundits call him a fool. If he goes down and doesn't get a penalty, he gets booked at least (sometimes even if he just falls and hasn't appealed for a penalty), and the crowd goes mental ....... and the incident is replayed forever more. If a forward goes through with a defender kicking seven bells out of him, but stays on his feet and gets a shot in which the goalie saves, he shouldn't be penalised for his HONESTY in playing on despite being fouled, foul/s were committed in the area and the advantage he should gain is a penalty kick.

The big clubs all try to win penalties and pressurise the ref' if they are struggling ...... not just Chelsea. I'm only guessing Snoots, but I think Huddersfield might do it to Chesterfield if they were struggling to beat us, just as we'd do it to Gresley Rovers .......

You can get a penalty for a shirt pull in the area without going down, but a trip in a tackle? If the forward tries to keep his feet how often will it be given? We're talking blue moons here. Diving exist because the way the rules were interpreted encouraged it.

And while I'm at it if you've played as much rugby as I have you'll realise it is exceeding difficult to pull another man to the ground only be grabbing his shirt. Even a rugby shirt will sometimes give way before the man. BUT in football players hit the deck on a regular basis following a slight tug at their collar. They ARE diving, but we can see they have been fouled because we can see what happened to the shirt. Now what is the difference between that and a player who has been tripped but need not have fallen? If shirt-tugging were a way of bringing a player down rugby players would have cottoned on.

I agree with Pooch, if we are going to use this technology we need to sort out when and how, so everyone involved and watching knows and is aware of what is happening. But VAR is only a shambles in so far as the game itself is a shambles.

If football involved some notion of sportsmanship beyond giving the ball back to a team that had to kick it out to get attention for an injured colleague, we might begin to get somewhere. Snooker players will call fouls against themselves with thousands of pounds involved. Mats Wilander refused to take a point which would have won him the French Open Tennis Championships and INSISTED on the point being replayed. Imagine a centre forward insisting the penalty he's just been awarded was unjust, because he simply fell, and imagine the furore if he then decided to roll the penno deliberately wide. The Corinthians used to be so ashamed of having a penalty awarded against them their keeper would lean on the post and leave the goal unguarded. There IS just an option to play fair.

[St Charles Owl]

Didn't see this game so can't comment on it specifically but the following is where VAR can only be used:

"VAR can be used in four "match-changing" situations - goals, penalty/no penalty decisions, straight red cards and cases of mistaken identity by the referee."

[bluepooch]

I can see it being useful for black and white decisions like offside and whether over the line or not but last nights game proved that even when tackles are scrutinised to the minute detail and they still cannot be clear cut then its a waste of time.

[Devongone]

The point I'm trying to make is that if the player being fouled doesn't DO SOMETHING to make VAR be used the ref' will wave play on or simply let the game continue. So the fouled player has to hit the deck whether it is necessary or not ...... he can't continue with his effort to score and hope the ref' will give the penalty anyway. VAR demands simulation, the forward has to dramatise the incident. You'll never again see a Cyrille Regis going through with the centre half still hanging on to his shirt as the ball hits the back of the net.

Every moment players and the ball are in the penalty area is a penalty / no penalty decision. If the VAR could examine all last Saturday's games I wonder how many corners there were at which NO FOULS were taking place. I'm betting not many. It's not VAR's fault that the game doesn't know what it is doing.