Poll: VAR or No VAR?

[Kenai]

One thing I see crop up in these discussions quite often is the idea of 'going back to the original point of offside' alongside comments about 'people have paid money so should see goals'

If you summarise the history of offside though, it's actually currently the most in favour of attacking players it has ever been.

At conception in the 1800s, there had to be three players in front of the attacking player for him to beonside.

This changed in the early 1900s to being just two players (as we are now) for the attacker to be onside.

This didn't then change significantly until 1990 when it was altered so that the attacker can be level with the second last defending player and remain onside.

In 2005 it got clarified a bit to the 'any legal body part' and also the definition of what constitutes interfering with play is.

I find quite interesting that many seem to hark back to a previous time of the attacker having more advantage yet judging by the rules, they've never had as much advantage as they have now. Most of these changes though, seemingly have been implemented off the back of boring football with a lack of goals.

Personally, I don't think we're yet at a point where the football has become so boring that we need to feed attacking teams more of an advantage to create more goals and generate more excitement.

 

[jonneymendoza]

I keep hearing people say this, but why? The ref has a team looking at the 'side monitors', why slow things down even more with one guy, the ref, looking at countless angles of the decision.

I'm on the fence, mainly as I don't have the technology in my league. It is quite entertaining seeing celebrations etc only for the goal to be overturned. That Neto celebration for example was funny. I'd of course be furious if it was my team getting screwed over!

my league? what league is that?

 

[explicit4u]

my league? what league is that?

Leeds/Championship iirc

 

[BaZ87]

Well it looks like everyone who would rather defer to the less accurate linesman for tight calls will be seeing their preference enacted and IFAB will be reissuing guidance in a couple of months to say VAR should only be used for clear and obvious in ALL circumstances, including offside.



I have my reservations whether this will be any better, you'll correct all the calls that are yards offside/onside but anything closer than that and we're just going to defer to the linesman and hope his guessing game is up to par.

IFAB have now backtracked on or at least clarified these comments:

https://www.espn.co.uk/football/eng...ar-even-to-the-tightest-of-margins-ifab-chief

'Clear and obvious' will not be applied to offsides, hawkeye lines will stand no matter how tight the call and all he wanted to say with his previous comments was that VAR officials need to work quicker to establish their decision. He also appears to rule out any margin of error being used too.

 

[McBain]

Definitely no VAR.

 

[robfosters]

Ok, what does everyone think of Wengers offside proposal that if any part of the attackers body that can score a goal is behind or in line with the defender, they will be deemed onside.

Sensible proposal or is senility tightening its grip on old Arsene?

 

[Martynt74]

Seems sensible enough.

I'd also like to see advantage given where players are offside when the balls played, then run level with the last defender and then still get to the ball. If you've managed to double the distance you cover before the defender then all the power to you!

 

[BaZ87]

It's a terrible idea that will have huge knock on effects to how the game is played. The image in the tweet below would now be considered onside - at the very least forwards would have a full yard headstart on defenders making playing somebody offside both nigh on impossible and incredibly risky. What will be the consequences of that? Teams will drop as deep as they possibly can to make it as hard as possible for attackers to run in behind them.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1230096972738179074

 

[Martynt74]

To the above, i'd argue that you could use the current rule for set piece scenarios to avoid that happening.

In the second picture then so be it, that's an extreme scenario but it's the defenders fault for not being closer to the attacker!

 

[BaZ87]

It wouldn't be extreme if the rules were different though. Forwards would actively position themselves ahead of the last defender with just part of their foot in-line. Defenders are already disadvantaged in the sense that they are reacting to the forwards run, if the forward is now permitted to be more than a meter ahead of them too it would become impossible for them.

I mentioned earlier in the thread that Liverpool have made a conscious decision to defend higher up the pitch since the introduction of VAR because the 10-20cm offside calls that weren't being given pre-var are now being given. If teams are defending higher because an extra 10-20cm advantage for defenders then what will they do if a rule change gives forwards a 1 meter advantage? I seriously doubt IFAB would allow this rule change without trials and I'd bet anything that the trials resulted in teams defending much deeper than before.

 

[Trusty]

It wouldn't be extreme if the rules were different though. Forwards would actively position themselves ahead of the last defender with just part of their foot in-line. Defenders are already disadvantaged in the sense that they are reacting to the forwards run, if the forward is now permitted to be more than a meter ahead of them too it would become impossible for them.

I mentioned earlier in the thread that Liverpool have made a conscious decision to defend higher up the pitch since the introduction of VAR because the 10-20cm offside calls that weren't being given pre-var are now being given. If teams are defending higher because an extra 10-20cm advantage for defenders then what will they do if a rule change gives forwards a 1 meter advantage? I seriously doubt IFAB would allow this rule change without trials and I'd bet anything that the trials resulted in teams defending much deeper than before.

No it doesn't, we've done testing with this already, these past 2 months we've run games using this application of the law. Nothing changes, you are using extreme examples in the above tweets and the fact that it's a snapshot makes it far worse than it actually plays out on the field.

There will be slightly more goals in games, and that can't be a bad thing.

 

[BaZ87]

No it doesn't, we've done testing with this already, these past 2 months we've run games using this application of the law. Nothing changes, you are using extreme examples in the above tweets and the fact that it's a snapshot makes it far worse than it actually plays out on the field.

There will be slightly more goals in games, and that can't be a bad thing.

With the greatest of respect, I don't believe a word you say Trusty.

IFAB done testing for a change in the offside law from free-kicks before and the change was scrapped after it resulted in both sets of teams camped in the 6 yard box.

 

[div0]

How can anyone think that this new proposal does anything other than make a new set of completely marginal situations?! Ie, the player is now onside by a toenail - but also at the same time he's also a meter or so closer to the goal too.

It does absolutely nothing to stop the stupid, time consuming, line-drawing video analysis that is the real problem already. If VAR is to work in football they must ditch the idea of drawing lines on a screen - it's ridiculous. No-one cares about onside/offside to that degreee and if they do, then we may as well condemn football to being a completely tedious spectator sport.

VAR offers the perfect situation for what fans actually want, so long as it is implemented correctly.

• It inherently discourages linesman from flagging marginal decisions, and instead promotes allowing the game to flow in the knowledge that the situation will only be reviewed if any significant benefit is gained (ie, a goal is scored)
  • Far fewer occurances of being flagged offside by linesman, only for video replays to show that the striker was actually onside and should have scored, or potentially gone on to score.
• It could quickly be used to review obvious errors (where linesman hasn't flagged) and a player is clearly offside.

They just need to have the balls and say that VAR is not about making the 'right' decision (down to the smallest margin) - it is about preventing any obvious mistakes from the officials.

Then all they need to do is put appropriate guidelines in place for what 'clearly offside' means (ie when it is a situation where it would have been reasonably expected that the linesman should have made a different decision). Fans would then have to get used to the fact that marginal decisions are often not called in real-time and that this generally results in some small benefit to the attacker.

Look at rugby for example, when a try is scored and there is a possibility of a forward pass they will review it, but unless the pass is so clearly forward that the officials should reasonably have spotted it, they never overrule. They certianly don't waste 5 minutes drawing lines on a screen to check is if went forward 1mm.

 

[CliffyG]

I think it's a terrible idea. Not only does it just move the was he wasn't he mm decisions to the furthest back part of the body surely it makes it harder for a linesman to judge it if there can be such a gap. Heard on talksport how they do it with rugby. If a offside has been referred to VAR they will check and not immediately obvious that it's a wrong decision they stick with the ok field decision.

 

[Darkpassenger]

The game needs VAR but it needs to be refined for next season

 

[mmj_uk]

Ok, what does everyone think of Wengers offside proposal that if any part of the attackers body that can score a goal is behind or in line with the defender, they will be deemed onside.

Sensible proposal or is senility tightening its grip on old Arsene?

Worse idea than it is at current, they need to just use common sense and stick by the traditional definition of offside that linesmen have used for decades, in other words whether or not a player is clearly/significantly offside at the time the ball is played, if you have to spend 2 minutes analysing and drawing lines then it's not clear and so do what CliffyG says. The problem with VAR and offsides is they're uniquely over-scrutinising them using pretty primitive technology that existed and could have been implemented decades ago, unless they can bring in totally accurate technology that gives an instant decision to the referees watch like they did with goal line technology then just go by clear and obvious and only rule out the incidents that are so wrong they used to enrage people. I wouldn't have a problem with 1mm offside calls if I knew it was totally accurate and instead of holding the game up for 2 minutes was an instant call.

Personally, I think the only person officiating the game should be the referee so ideally I would rather see a challenge system and the referee reviewing any challenges using a monitor not some random bloke 50 miles away picking and choosing what to review, ignoring blatant handballs at one end and then awarding one at the other end 2mins later. If they're going to bring in technology then do it properly, don't just replace the officials with some other bloke making the same human mistakes.

 

[dacads]

No wrong decisions will mean less controversy.

Combine this with less delay and you’re onto a winner.

Is this realistic though?

From what I’ve seen there’s been more negatives than positives. That’s probably not true statistically but hey ho

 

[BaZ87]

I mentioned this a few times in the last few months but trials of a new automated offside system will be stepping up next season, with testing carried out at Anfield, Stamford Bridge, the Etihad and Old Trafford. Reportedly it's already been tested at one unnamed stadium this season and the results were positive. All being well it will be introduced at the 2022 WC and then for the start of the 23/24 PL season.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1622132238

 

[fez]

How can anyone think that this new proposal does anything other than make a new set of completely marginal situations?! Ie, the player is now onside by a toenail - but also at the same time he's also a meter or so closer to the goal too.

Yeah, I'm pretty baffled that anyone with half a brain supports this. Its literally just measuring from a different part of the body...like we have done a few times already this season. The fundamental issue with VAR and offsides is that you are quite often talking cms between players and when the margins are that fine and you think you have the tools to decide fairly if something was offside then it will take some time to work out.

I'm surprised it hasn't been handed off to AI yet honestly. At the top level of football at the big clubs they could totally create a system that can reliably track every player and determine when someone is offside.

 

[BaZ87]

A few reports coming out tonight saying that there will be some tweaks to offsides from next season. Thicker lines will be used when measuring offsides, giving more advantage to forwards and imo more important, we're not going to see the line drawing, we'll just see the outcome. I honestly think not seeing the lines being drawn and just being told it's on or off (providing it's done quickly) will take so much of the pain away.