The Ref Stop

WOL vs MUN

Gabriel

Serial whistler
Level 7 Referee
Thoughts on the penalty awarded to Wolves? I'm not convinced there was enough for a foul, but it was long overdue that we got a soft pen against Man Utd after MW1 and Onana's punch.
 
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It was another example of the failings of var. So infuriatingly soft and rubber stamped as a 'supportable' decision. Further encouraging players to go down under negligible contact
 
Always thought VAR would be good for football, but I am slowly falling out of love with the modern day game. We have more inconsistency than ever before as officials judgment is clearly clouded by doubts and the obscurity of "clear and obvious" where blatantly obvious errors are ignored/not over turned. The public think referees at the top are incompetent or corrupt and it's become increasingly hard to defend some of the terrible decisions we see week in week out. Are we seeing a repeat of Mike Dean's admitted failures whilst acting as a VAR official as in his words "he didn't want to drop a colleague in it"?
 
It feels to me that VAR in England is gradually getting towards where it was always supposed to be, i.e. only getting involved in very clear mistakes. Was it a soft penalty? Yes, but it wasn't a clanger and VAR should be nowhere near it.

The problem is that isn't what people thought they would be getting, they want every little possible error correcting and that was never on the cards, or at least it was never supposed to be. Unfortunately Mike Riley's team made a total mess of implementing it and were getting involved in decisions that VAR should not have been touching, and it has taken this long to seemingly get the involvement level somewhere close to where it should be.
 
Webb’s team have also made a mess of implementing it this season.

VAR is not rubbish because of Mike Riley, it’s rubbish.
I would argue more that he inherited a mess and it has taken time to get the involvement level right. We certainly now seem to be seeing far less VAR intervention for subjective decisions than we have done in previous seasons.

If there is any subjectivity whatsoever VAR should stay well out.
 
Sorry RR can't agree, there has to be a time that we need to stop defending the indefensible. Top officials are looking incompetent on and off the pitch, too wrapped up in invisible guidelines and protocols even they don't know what is "clear and obvious" anymore. As system that was introduced to help irradicate obvious errors and inconsistency has resulted in far more inconsistency and controversy than ever. on and off the pitch We go into games every week not having a clue what will happen if and when VAR get involved -: Identical fouls not given - one reviewed as clear and obvious, one not. Likewise hand ball decisions etc

Referees on the pitch need to be brave regardless of which teams are playing and where, likewise VAR. The VAR has to have the confidence and backing to tell the likes of Anthony Taylor or Michael Oliver they got a decision blatantly wrong otherwise it will never work. Any element of hero worship by a junior VAR official towards a senior referee on the pitch or not wanting to be seen to throw your colleague under a bus and the system fails. There's no easy fix, maybe an independent body with dedicated VAR officials who don't know the onfield officials for example, but VAR in the Premier League particularly has always been and remains a complete mess of their own making!
 
I can’t blame VAR on this one, I think a poor on field call, the way the Wolves player theatrically dived which you could see live was a giveaway.

The guidance to referees was that HW didn't want soft penalties, that guidance was ignored by the on field referee.
 
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