LEE v WHU

[GraemeS]

I've just been reminded of the VAR penalty decision in this game and thought it was interesting enough to warrant discussion. Starts at 35s in the following video if you're in the UK

For anyone who can't see that, the WHU attacker is attacking the box, pokes the ball to a teammate and is then clearly upended in the PA. Teammate takes a touch and then lays the ball off to a 3rd teammate, who is unmarked in loads of space and has a really good chance to score, but puts it wide. On field decision is no foul --> GK, but VAR intervenes and recommends a penalty.

Dale Johnson in his VAR review says that because the foul was missed on field, this represents a C&O error and the VAR giving the penalty was correct. But I would argue there's a strong case that if the referee had seen the foul, he would have delayed and ended up playing advantage regardless.

Therefore, although I hate the expression in these discussions, this is proper "two bites of the cherry" stuff. Had the clear offence been correctly identified, the end result would probably have been a GK. But because he missed that easy call, the attack get both the advantage AND another go from the penalty spot when a good GSO is missed. Or am I being a bit over-generous on the quality of the possible advantage?

 

[Degnann]

Watched the highlights yesterday and thought it was two bites of the cherry too.

Suppose it would come down to comms and Coote potentially saying he wouldn't have given a penalty regardless

 

[Big Cat]

Madness

 

[es1]

this is (in my mind) a big elephant in the room regarding penalty decisions and VAR

surely there needs to be an appreciation that if a chance is created after the potential penalty which is as good as a penalty itself but missed, then advantage is deemed to have been played and the penalty is not awarded

obviously you have a separate issue about what constitutes a chance as good as a penalty but I think it's important to bring this in to how VAR operates

 

[RustyRef]

I watched it last night and the only conclusion I could come to is VAR asked David Coote if he had seen a foul or whether he had seen it and played advantage. He must have said he didn't see it, in which case they have remit to check for a penalty, and once they see it was very clearly a foul the advantage effectively hadn't happened.

 

[Redster]

I don't think the chance was as good as a penalty - ball game slowly from his wrong side and the keeper was charging him.

That being said, I do think advantage should be considered when making these decisions and then clearly communicated

 

[GraemeS]

In reality, you're probably right - but it's a textbook example of one where any referee stopping play for the PK probably would have received complaints from both teams! Players will overestimate their ability to put the ball away all the way up and down the levels, and I do think we need to allow for that in our PK vs advantage judgements where possible.

 

[es1]

I don't think the chance was as good as a penalty - ball game slowly from his wrong side and the keeper was charging him.

That being said, I do think advantage should be considered when making these decisions and then clearly communicated

you're right, this chance is definitely not as good/clear/obvious as a penalty

I really like xG as a stat/metric and this is something that could be used at high level to judge whether a chance is better/easier than a penalty or not. definitely not an easy thing to compare but it definitely could be done

 

[bester]

75% chance to score a penalty, allowing a half chance then bringing it back for a penalty boosts the chances of scoring to 90%.

Perhaps the Ref should be able to look at the action following the missed foul and decide if an advantage has accrued.

 

[Brian Hamilton]

I was at this game and I have to say that Mr Coote did not have his best game. I have no doubt this referral to VAR and its proximity to Half Time (when he will probably have dwelled on why he didn't see it), affected his performance in the Second Half.