RateTheRef

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I hope this link works. 13 VAR mistakes this season compared with 10 last season. I don't believe that 13 is sufficient data to conclude anything such as the bigger clubs benefit most! Bournemouth have been unfortunate.
Also, I struggle to accept that a 3:2 split is a clear error although I agree it's not a situation where we surveyed 100 people....
Again, 3 more errors than last season is meaningless unless it becomes a trend.
I haven't got time to look at failures by referee and VAR. However Oliver got it wrong on VAR. Even the best make errors.

Bournemouth were on the wrong end more than anyone else last season as well. Senesi not seeing red twice is an improvement in that respect!! I agreed with Gillett sticking to his guns on that one though, however did comment on the other one that that he should have had a red.

Presumably the red card would still have been issued as Violent Conduct occurred even though the match should have been stopped a few seconds earlier which does seem rather against the laws of natural justice.

It's no more against natural justice than prosecuting someone for punching a person in a pub after having their drink knocked over only to discover later that the person who was struck had already been barred from the premises.  The fact that the victim was not have been entitled to be there does not justify the assault.  Violence is violence and it should sanctioned accordingly.

In the grand scheme of things it was insignificant but in terms of trusting VAR for offside it was certainly negative.

in the closing minutes of the City v Villa game Foden ran onto a through ball into the penalty area and blasted the ball into the Villa net.  So far as I could tell there was no flag.  As is always the case VAR checkd and decided tha Foden was offside.  Well it was certainly close and as Foden was coming back from an offside position whilst the ball was being played there was no basis to argue.  A few minutes later a computer generated image was shown on the screen and at home which was labelled offside but showed only Foden’s  arm, below the elbow, to be in an offside position.  The graphic was noticed by the crowd and the players and Foden drew the referee’s attention to the graphic.  As the game had been restarted there was obviously nothing he could do but shrug his shoulders.  I believe the BBC revealed that the wrong graphic had been shown on the screen and had been replaced.  I didn’t see the replacement graphic directly but from what I have seen online they look like ‘old fashiioned’ manually generated images shoiwing Foden to be a few mm offside.  It was very close may well have been offside given the overgenerous estimation of the accuracy of VAR offside technology.

However, it does beg the question as to haw the initial graphic was produced and labelled Offsidf when it cl,early did not show an offside (Unless Foden has a previously unknown deformed right arm and a large growth from his right side.)

In my view most current VAR officials do not have the necessary skill set for the job particularly when it comes to trying to piece together three dimensional scenarios from two dimensional images.  Video Refereeing should only be carried out by specialists and managed separately from on-field referees.  Of course they need refereeinf exerience and a thorough knowledge of the laws but once selected to be VARs that should be their role and they should be then trained appropriately for that.  I would then get rid of the nonsense of sending the referee to the monitor to agree with VAR 99% of the time and the VAR alone should be judged on his/her decision to over rule in all cases, including offsides, only where it is clearly and obvioiusly wrong in the first case.

Quote from: Microscopist on Mon 25 May 2026 17:35

In the grand scheme of things it was insignificant but in terms of trusting VAR for offside it was certainly negative.

in the closing minutes of the City v Villa game Foden ran onto a through ball into the penalty area and blasted the ball into the Villa net.  So far as I could tell there was no flag.  As is always the case VAR checkd and decided tha Foden was offside.  Well it was certainly close and as Foden was coming back from an offside position whilst the ball was being played there was no basis to argue.  A few minutes later a computer generated image was shown on the screen and at home which was labelled offside but showed only Foden’s  arm, below the elbow, to be in an offside position.  The graphic was noticed by the crowd and the players and Foden drew the referee’s attention to the graphic.  As the game had been restarted there was obviously nothing he could do but shrug his shoulders.  I believe the BBC revealed that the wrong graphic had been shown on the screen and had been replaced.  I didn’t see the replacement graphic directly but from what I have seen online they look like ‘old fashiioned’ manually generated images shoiwing Foden to be a few mm offside.  It was very close may well have been offside given the overgenerous estimation of the accuracy of VAR offside technology.

However, it does beg the question as to haw the initial graphic was produced and labelled Offsidf when it cl,early did not show an offside (Unless Foden has a previously unknown deformed right arm and a large growth from his right side.)

In my view most current VAR officials do not have the necessary skill set for the job particularly when it comes to trying to piece together three dimensional scenarios from two dimensional images.  Video Refereeing should only be carried out by specialists and managed separately from on-field referees.  Of course they need refereeinf exerience and a thorough knowledge of the laws but once selected to be VARs that should be their role and they should be then trained appropriately for that.  I would then get rid of the nonsense of sending the referee to the monitor to agree with VAR 99% of the time and the VAR alone should be judged on his/her decision to over rule in all cases, including offsides, only where it is clearly and obvioiusly wrong in the first case.

BBC showed the wrong image, he was offside, albeit by an amount that should he have had a slightly smaller pre-match meal he might not have been.

With semi-automated I don't think the VAR officials do much, it is done by the technology itself and the fully trained VAR operator.  It is only when the technology fails that they have to go back to the drawing of lines and determining the exact moment of the ball being played.

Well I was watching on Sky not BBC and the graphic was shown at the ground and I didn’t know that the BBC were running VAR, though it would explain a lot.  Even if it was a BBC (which I very much doubt) fault they presumably got the image from the VAR so the question still stands - how come this image showing not offside was labelled Offside was produced?  Your explanation would seem to imply that VAR over ruled the SAOT which would raise a more profound question. 

I find you comment about Foden distasteful and shows a woeful lack of knowledge of anatomy and physiology if you think that eating a little extra would affect his backside so quickly.

I have no doubt that the VAR  technicians are trained to operate the equipment but the mislabelling of this image suggest that they are not so astute at interpreting the images which is my point.  That is in presumably the reason for having trained referees rather than just leaving it to the technicians.

I meant Sky rather than BBC, but yet it would appear that VAR initially gave the broadcasters the wrong image.  Who the broadcaster is isn't really relevant, whilst it was shown by Sky in the UK it was filmed by Premier League Productions and would have been shown by Stan is Australia, SuperSport in South Africa, Peacock in the USA, etc.  But at the end of the day he was offside, doesn't matter whether it was millimetres, centimetres, off is off, it is black and white.  It is what people wanted, even if they now don't want it when decisions go against them.

My comment about the pre-match meal was clearly meant as a joke to say how close it was, just as I could have as easily joked about how ironic the part of his body that he has been sat on for much of the season got him offside.  I work day in day out with technology, and even with the increasing explosion of AI technology is only as good as the people operating it.  I would guess that a human error resulted in the wrong image initially being given to the broadcasters, something that was eventually corrected.  Mistakes happen in all walks of professional life, it just obviously gets more attention when a mistake is seen by millions of people worldwide.

 

I’d be surprised if the images shown in the stadium came through Sky but in any event they originated from VAR and whilst all of us make mistakes some credible explanation of how this image was created and how it came to be rejected would be welcome but as it hasn’t attracted extensive media attention I don’t suppose we will ever know.