VAR?

[Pizzo]

Use the VAR cash to install goal line technology and ditch VAR forever.

[The Master]

10 hours ago, Saint Paddy said:

Off side "should" be  if a player is obviously clear of the last defender. If you need lazers to define who is where... go with on field decision.

What is "obviously clear", though?

There's been many occasions where the still images ostensibly show a player being "half a yard offside"^TM but when the lines are placed it's not even close. 

[craigkillie]

9 hours ago, houston_bud said:

We often hear that 'everything gets checked', which most folk knew wasn't the case. It's now been confirmed that everything doesn't get checked.

The phrase "everything gets checked" is mainly used to address the people who can't understand that stuff is going on in the background in the VAR room and that the referee doesn't have to constantly be sent over to the screen. The VAR will check everything they identify as being a possible incident, but just like any on-field referees there are going to be rare occasions where they totally miss something, which is what happened last night. It's obviously a massive error, but these things will continue to happen for as long as you have humans in charge of a decision making process.

I was watching the game live, and the focus on the commentary was all about the St Mirren players appealing for a shirt pull. I think Sutton may have spotted the handball live, but the initial discussion was about the tug. As we were later told, the same thing would have been going on in the VAR room - they see a possible tug and are then grabbing all the angles to get a closer look at that, before deciding that there wasn't enough in it (which I think was correct). Because they were so laser-focused on that one part of the incident, likely nobody grabbed the one angle that showed the really clear handball - I think it was about the 4th replay they showed on the broadcast which eventually brought that up.

If you look up this thread, a lot of the discussion (rightly) is about how long these decisions have taken, and about imposing time limits on VAR checks. However, the other side of the coin there is that the desire to make decisions as quickly as possible and not to have lots of long delays probably led to that handball being missed. You can't have both things with VAR, either you have a VAR system which checks things properly and takes time to do it, or you have a VAR system which checks things quickly and makes more mistakes. If you want less disruption to the game, the obvious solution is to bin it completely.

Edited February 28 by craigkillie

[Saint Paddy]

3 hours ago, The Master said:

What is "obviously clear", though?

There's been many occasions where the still images ostensibly show a player being "half a yard offside"^TM but when the lines are placed it's not even close. 

Not sure how to answer that. There are a couple of ways.

1. The spirit of the law.

Offside was implemented to prevent goal hanging. Being half a cm offside doesn't necessarily give an illegal advantage. Subjective.

2. Obviously clear to the AR, who is tasked with flagging the infringement.  If (s)he doesn't see it as obvious, on field decision.  obvious caveat being if a player was in a position that the AR missed, for eg 20 yards ahead of play, and gained an advantage, then if we must persist with this farce that is VAR, that's an opportunity to use it.  This type of scenario is exceptionally rare, tho.

 

3. Let refs ref, players play,and spectators enjoy the moment. Marginal decisions (right or wrong) should be accepted.

 

[sergie's no1 fan]

2 hours ago, craigkillie said:

The phrase "everything gets checked" is mainly used to address the people who can't understand that stuff is going on in the background in the VAR room and that the referee doesn't have to constantly be sent over to the screen. The VAR will check everything they identify as being a possible incident, but just like any on-field referees there are going to be rare occasions where they totally miss something, which is what happened last night. It's obviously a massive error, but these things will continue to happen for as long as you have humans in charge of a decision making process.

I was watching the game live, and the focus on the commentary was all about the St Mirren players appealing for a shirt pull. I think Sutton may have spotted the handball live, but the initial discussion was about the tug. As we were later told, the same thing would have been going on in the VAR room - they see a possible tug and are then grabbing all the angles to get a closer look at that, before deciding that there wasn't enough in it (which I think was correct). Because they were so laser-focused on that one part of the incident, likely nobody grabbed the one angle that showed the really clear handball - I think it was about the 4th replay they showed on the broadcast which eventually brought that up.

If you look up this thread, a lot of the discussion (rightly) is about how long these decisions have taken, and about imposing time limits on VAR checks. However, the other side of the coin there is that the desire to make decisions as quickly as possible and not to have lots of long delays probably led to that handball being missed. You can't have both things with VAR, either you have a VAR system which checks things properly and takes time to do it, or you have a VAR system which checks things quickly and makes more mistakes. If you want less disruption to the game, the obvious solution is to bin it completely.

I like yourself watched the game on SKY.

County had a questionable penalty looked at and the check was over within seconds. Same with the shirt tug/handball appeal from ourselves. 

I mean he could have gave it for the shirt pull alone which is baffling in itself.

Aitken seemed to be trying to be more interested in breaking the world record for VAR checks instead of going through it thoroughly.

The simple question for me is would he have treated the incidents with the same quick timeframe in a Rangers-Celtic game? The answer is obviously no chance. 

He shouldn't be allowed to to VAR again imo. Major major f**k up.

[2426255]

The solution is to just look at the obvious incidents, accept there is subjectivity involved and basically scale it back a little. I believe that's where we'll end up eventually. You then get reduced benefit, but the core incidents are generally correct with reduced cost to fan experience, a compromise.

The problem for me is that fans, media and the clubs want all marginal decisions to be correct and checked. If they could get over that, be prepared to write-off subjective calls then we could move forward. I think the VAR and refereeing has unfolded this way largely as a result of the stakeholders interests resulting in referees being very conscious that their only defence is making technically correct decisions.

The games in Scotland are refereed with the fear of making a mistake. If we can't successfully reach the outcome outlined above it'll say a lot about Scottish Football and not in a good way.

Edited February 28 by 2426255

[KingswellsRed]

6 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

The solution is to just look at the obvious incidents, accept there is subjectivity involved and basically scale it back a little. I believe that's where we'll end up eventually. You then get reduced benefit, but the core incidents are generally correct with reduced cost to fan experience, a compromise.

The problem for me is that fans, media and the clubs want all marginal decisions to be correct and checked. If they could get over that, be prepared to write-off subjective calls then we could move forward. I think the VAR and refereeing has unfolded this way largely as a result of the stakeholders interests resulting in referees being very conscious that their only defence is making technically correct decisions.

The games in Scotland are refereed with the fear of making a mistake. If we can't successfully reach the outcome outlined above it'll say a lot about Scottish Football and not in a good way.

Or Scottish clubs could actually survey their fans on this important issue.

[2426255]

Just now, KingswellsRed said:

Or Scottish clubs could actually survey their fans on this important issue.

Fans are a massive part of the problem of VAR in my view. They are one of the stakeholders that drive the outcomes we see - probably the primary driver as it all comes from the fans ultimately. They are the paying customer and from that all else follows basically.  

[kingjoey]

2 hours ago, Saint Paddy said:

Not sure how to answer that. There are a couple of ways.

1. The spirit of the law.

Offside was implemented to prevent goal hanging. Being half a cm offside doesn't necessarily give an illegal advantage. Subjective.

2. Obviously clear to the AR, who is tasked with flagging the infringement.  If (s)he doesn't see it as obvious, on field decision.  obvious caveat being if a player was in a position that the AR missed, for eg 20 yards ahead of play, and gained an advantage, then if we must persist with this farce that is VAR, that's an opportunity to use it.  This type of scenario is exceptionally rare, tho.

 

3. Let refs ref, players play,and spectators enjoy the moment. Marginal decisions (right or wrong) should be accepted.

 

The problem that you have is that you have to have set laws. So if a player is 1cm offside and you set that as the law, then you have the same problem as now, but these mental lines have to be drawn 1cm from the last part of the scoring part of the second last defender. You have the same problem in a different place. 

[The Master]

11 minutes ago, kingjoey said:

The problem that you have is that you have to have set laws. So if a player is 1cm offside and you set that as the law, then you have the same problem as now, but these mental lines have to be drawn 1cm from the last part of the scoring part of the second last defender. You have the same problem in a different place. 

Which is why the new "whole body needs to be offside" proposal won't solve anything. 

Ultimately, being in an offside position is a question of fact - a player either is or isn't. Changing the parameters doesn't alter that, and as you say just shifts the problem. 

[VincentGuerin]

54 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

Fans are a massive part of the problem of VAR in my view. They are one of the stakeholders that drive the outcomes we see - probably the primary driver as it all comes from the fans ultimately. They are the paying customer and from that all else follows basically.  

This doesn't really make any sense.

You say fans are the paying customer and all else follows from that.

Yet, as far as I'm aware nobody has bothered their arse to ask these paying cutomers what they think about anything. So, actually, none of this is driven by the fans.

[kingjoey]

3 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:

This doesn't really make any sense.

You say fans are the paying customer and all else follows from that.

Yet, as far as I'm aware nobody has bothered their arse to ask these paying cutomers what they think about anything. So, actually, none of this is driven by the fans.

If it was driven by fans, the probability is that we wouldn't have VARs.

[Saint Paddy]

26 minutes ago, kingjoey said:

The problem that you have is that you have to have set laws. So if a player is 1cm offside and you set that as the law, then you have the same problem as now, but these mental lines have to be drawn 1cm from the last part of the scoring part of the second last defender. You have the same problem in a different place. 

The laws are there.

If Assistant Ref deems it too close to call offside, then it should be waved on.

If AR deems it offside, but makes an error? Cest la vie.

We grumble for a minute, but get on with game.

Instead of watching someone with finger in their ear for two minutes, while a jobsworth with laser gets a hard on cos someone's bootlace is beyond the shoulder of a defender.  Al the while no one knows what's happening. 

It can get in the bin.

[kingjoey]

3 minutes ago, Saint Paddy said:

The laws are there.

If Assistant Ref deems it too close to call offside, then it should be waved on.

If AR deems it offside, but makes an error? Cest la vie.

We grumble for a minute, but get on with game.

Instead of watching someone with finger in their ear for two minutes, while a jobsworth with laser gets a hard on cos someone's bootlace is beyond the shoulder of a defender.  Al the while no one knows what's happening. 

It can get in the bin.

Well obviously the answer is to get VAR in the bin. But as long as it's here, forever, we have the problems. 

[The Master]

15 minutes ago, Saint Paddy said:

If Assistant Ref deems it too close to call offside, then it should be waved on.

Being too close to call doesn't mean the player isn't still offside under the laws.

[Dunning1874]

20 minutes ago, The Master said:

Which is why the new "whole body needs to be offside" proposal won't solve anything. 

Ultimately, being in an offside position is a question of fact - a player either is or isn't. Changing the parameters doesn't alter that, and as you say just shifts the problem. 

This is really a separate issue about the offside rule itself regardless of VAR, because as you say offside or not is an objective fact and as long as you have VAR judging it you're going to have decisions where a player is just on or off by a millimetre of their toe or shoulder however you define it. You just move the problem of VAR drawing lines for a miniscule difference from the front of the attacker's body to the back of it. That fundamental issue can't be resolved as long as you're using VAR to check for offside.

I still think it would be a good change to move it to whole body beyond the last defender though, not because of VAR but because it weights the rule back in the favour of the attacking player and that's a good thing that better reflects the spirit of the offside rule. It's too easy for players to be caught offside and that change would give attacking players more leeway, but that really has nothing to with VAR and the same logic applies even in leagues where VAR isn't in use.

[2426255]

36 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:

This doesn't really make any sense.

You say fans are the paying customer and all else follows from that.

Yet, as far as I'm aware nobody has bothered their arse to ask these paying cutomers what they think about anything. So, actually, none of this is driven by the fans.

Fans are a fundamental part of how VAR has developed. We know how fans feel about VAR, what is the point of carrying out a survey or a consultation beyond just doing it for show? none. The fans want quick, consistent and accurate decision making. They're not going to get it.

The biggest problem with accurate decision making is the subjectivity. There isn't a right or wrong and it's often just a judgment call that one side won't agree with. The biggest problem with speed is accuracy, the faster you go the less accurate you are. The outcome? Slow decisions and ever granular levels of analysis and rules.

VAR as we see it is built to appease the fans, it doesn't appease them, but it's obviously been designed to try and do that. The problem is the fans because they won't be able to be appeased with VAR or without VAR. If they can let go of some of the accuracy on the minor decisions then we can trade off for speed of decision making.

Edited February 28 by 2426255

[SJFCtheTeamForMe]

55 minutes ago, kingjoey said:

The problem that you have is that you have to have set laws. So if a player is 1cm offside and you set that as the law, then you have the same problem as now, but these mental lines have to be drawn 1cm from the last part of the scoring part of the second last defender. You have the same problem in a different place. 

Don't know how many times that needs explained to people. No wonder Wenger suggested it. Football fans are daft enough it seems to think it'll make a difference. 

All it does is change where the line is drawn. Doesn't solve anything. Next people will be believing the head of refereeing when he claimed the VAR doesn't get much wrong. 

Just get VAR to f**k.

 

[VincentGuerin]

1 minute ago, 2426255 said:

VAR as we see it is built to appease the fans, it doesn't appease them, but it's obviously been designed to try and do that. The problem is the fans because they won't be able to be appeased with VAR or without VAR.

This just isn't true. You're not making sense.

[SJFCtheTeamForMe]

6 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

Fans are a fundamental part of how VAR has developed. We know how fans feel about VAR, what is the point of carrying out a survey or a consultation beyond just doing it for show? none. The fans want quick, consistent and accurate decision making. They're not going to get it.

The biggest problem with accurate decision making is the subjectivity. There isn't a right or wrong and it's often just a judgment call that one side won't agree with. The biggest problem with speed is accuracy, the faster you go the less accurate you are. The outcome? Slow decisions and ever granular levels of analysis and rules.

VAR as we see it is built to appease the fans, it doesn't appease them, but it's obviously been designed to try and do that. The problem is the fans because they won't be able to be appeased with VAR or without VAR.

Fans are in completely no way fundamental in how it's designed. Fans aren't really considered at all. When it was introduced they said they'd look at ways of improving it for fans. What did they do? f**k all. 

Surely you've been to a game and seen that? Ive lost count on how many decision's given by VAR live where I've not had a fucking clue what it was for.

Edited February 28 by SJFCtheTeamForMe