RateTheRef

A very fair, well argued point.
We had in fact gone as far as to talk about daylight between attacker and defender before giving the offside and any benefit (doubt) being afforded to the attacker.
This has been completely eroded

Just an aside about whether there is any subjectivity in VAR offside decisions, and apart from all the uncertainties I have raised earlier, is the dividing line between shoulder and arm decided subjectively?

Quote from: Ashington46 on Thu 15 Aug 2019 22:24

Quote from: Microscopist on Thu 15 Aug 2019 22:01

Just an aside about whether there is any subjectivity in VAR offside decisions, and apart from all the uncertainties I have raised earlier, is the dividing line between shoulder and arm decided subjectively?

Only if the arm is in a natural position  ------ sorry I coudn't resist!

A very profound insight - I think that all footballers likely to be involved in VAR decisions should have x-ray tomography 3D reconstructions of their shoulders with the arm in different positions which could then be superimposed on offside images to determine exactly where the arm/shoulder division was located.  That way we could get mm accuracy, at least in terms of anatomy.  With practice it shouldn't take more than about 15 minutes to get a decision.  Of course there would need to legislation outlawing footballers from having surgery to reduce the socket in the joint and having the bone replaced with X-ray transparent material in order to gain valuable mm on their opponents.

Quote from: RCG on Sun 18 Aug 2019 10:50

With regard to the new (ridiculous) handball interpretation a simple tweak is needed
Add in the phrase "If the player who scores..."
The touch off the Man City player yesterday, although it went to a colleague, Jesus still had to control.the ball, come back inside the defender and shoot.
Surprisingly inciteful punditry on MOTD about it is unfair to penalise attacking teams for a handball you would not give against the defender
The law was changed to prevent goals being scored off arms when the on field officials could not see (ireland being one i remember)
The handball law coupled with offside is reducing the number of goals, not increasing them

I absolutely agree.  The ludicrous new interpretation and the seeming insistence of the powers-that-be to have the game refereed by VAR led to a complete injustice last night.  I'm sure it's not the first time.  The handball that was penalised was clearly accidental, aggravated by the fact that the player was having his shirt grabbed by a defender.  So even if the goal was disallowed, a penalty should have been awarded instead. 

I cannot believe the intention of the tinkering was to create a bigger mess than  before, but this is what invariably happens, as with offside.  Oliver simply pointed to his ear to blame the VAR official, so why did he not review it himself?  He is our best referee but this did him no favours.  Had he reviewed the whole scene he may have decided to simply allow the goal. 


I have been, on balance, in favour of VAR but this type of uncertainty does it no favours and I get the impression that public opinion is strengthening against it..

I’ve no problem with the goal yesterday being disallowed. Ball travelled a long way before being flicked on by the hand and giving a significant advantage. No way would Oliver have allowed goal if reviewing it for himself. I think this is strength of VAR, detecting something practically impossible to spot in real time.

Whilst the wording is new, I believe PL clubs agreed this interpretation in 2016 and Mike Riley said over the summer that the handball interpretation would be unchanged from last few seasons.