Premier League: VAR is overshadowing the game

Whatever way this season’s Premier League plays out, it would be nice if the FA, Premier League, and PGMOL finally address the controversial issues surrounding VAR.

Despite Liverpool’s upset defeat at the hands of Fulham on Sunday, the needle on their chances of securing a 20th top-flight title hardly moved as their main contenders Arsenal could only draw against Everton the day before.

Clear and obvious

The 11-point gap between the sides seems insurmountable with just seven matches remaining, with bookies only giving the Gunners a 1% chance of turning it around come May 25. But those odds may have been a bit more favourable had Mikel Arteta’s side managed to overcome Liverpool’s Mesrseyside rivals at Goodison Park to cut the gap to nine points. And integral to that situation was the very controversial decision by VAR to award a penalty to Everton at the start of the second half, when referee Darren England ruled that Arsenal’s Myles Lewis-Skelly had knocked over Everton’s Jack Harrison in the Arsenal box. VAR reviewed the decision, and again in one of those outcomes only VAR can rationalise, decided that it was not a "clear and obvious" error, so VAR didn’t change the decision even though it was clearly not a penalty. The replay showed that any infringement by Lewis-Skelly happened outside the box but somehow, they deemed that Lewis-Skelly falling on Harrison’s leg as both men stumbled to the ground in the box was enough to let the penalty stand.

Lewis-Skelly has borne his fair share of dubious VAR decisions this season, but this may be the worst transgression against him and Arsenal. Anyone watching the encounter with Lewis-Skelly and Harrison would conclude that it was simply two players coming together with no intent to foul from either side. If anything, it might be deemed a free out as the Lewis-Skelly tumble resulted from the Everton man’s collision with him. Even if you see a foul by the Arsenal defender, it would have to be agreed it happened outside the box and at best was a free-in.

But the penalty decision stood and was put away by Iliman Ndiaye to level the game, denying Arsenal the chance to cut that title-race gap.

Reckless tackles

The social media wags of course were quick to recite the ‘LiVARpool’ jibes, conveniently forgetting that just days before Liverpool had themselves survived some truly despicable officiating at the hands of VAR, again while playing Everton in the derby at Anfield.

James Tarkowski’s tackle on Alexis MacAllister could have been career-ending, had MacAllister’s leg been fully planted on the ground. By sheer luck he had raised his foot slightly just before was made, otherwise it was a near certain leg break.

That the VAR review only deemed it worthy of a yellow card seems beyond the belief of anyone with functioning eyesight.

Late in the game, VAR decided not to bather looking at a Jordan Pickford swipe on Darwin Nunez. The Everton goalie kicked the legs from under Nunez in the box but got away with it because it happened after the referee had blown his whistle, so the play had technically stopped. Of course, anyone should know that while not a foul in the game it can be deemed dangerous play whether the referee blew the whistle or not. As was shown seconds later when Nunez was given a yellow for rolling back onto the field from the injury, he picked up from Pickford’s leg swipe. So the tackle wasn’t deemed an infringement but the tumble from that same tackle was worthy of a card. Amazing.

The VAR decisions or lack of decisions didn’t affect the result for Liverpool but could have resulted in injuries to two key players at this critical stage.

Love of the game

The weekend saw a slew of dodgy VAR decisions with Arsenal’s neighbours Spurs suffering some of the worst aspects of the tech’s interpretation. Against a doomed Southampton, Spurs and their fans were made to wait six minutes while VAR debated whether they had scored a goal or not. Lucas Bergvall thought he had doubled the Lilywhites lead on 33 minutes, only to have to wait an interminable amount of time to find that it was ruled out in the buildup by Cristian Romero’s fingernail being in the offside position. It may have technically been right, but if it takes that long to decide, then it should be given as a goal, giving the benefit of the doubt to the attacking side. It also shows the urgent need to bring in the semi-automatic offside technology to remove these long, game-disturbing waits.

Later in the game, Southampton keeper Aaron Ramsdale clearly dragged a loose ball back into the box with his hand but got away without even a booking as VAR deemed it was not enough of a scoring opportunity for Spurs.

It is understandable that Spurs boss Ange Postecoglou says he is falling out of love with the game (despite winning the match) after such decisions and following another Spurs’ goal being disallowed in the midweek game against Chelsea on yet another soft VAR decision.

Again, all this is not the technology’s fault. It is working fine. It is the human element that is still letting the game down. There will always be errors, but the governing bodies and the referee’s PGMOL have to root out the obvious interpretation mistakes and a lot of work is needed to bring a bit of consistency on the rules and what is deemed a foul.