Carabao Final - CHE V LIV

[Paul_10]

Let's remember, in the first season of VAR when referees were not using monitors, you had people saying the referee was being undermined and that someone else was just making the key decisions for him.

I'm comfortable with the referees going over to the screen, they do have the power to reject an review but as been mentioned, a VAR should very rarely be wrong when he got all the angles. Rustyref mentioned about a referee being marked down if the VAR advises him to go to the screen and the ref changes his decision but I wonder how it will be marked if a referee rejected an review?

Either way, the disallowed goal was rightly chalked off and it was a good use of VAR imo

 

[GraemeS]

Managers and pundits keep making the argument that it’s inevitable that it’ll be awarded if they go to the screen but I’d argue that’s exactly the outcome we want. They are being brought to the monitor being told that after review, they’ve potentially made a clear and obvious mistake. We don’t want the mistake to be the review itself with the referee rejecting what they are seeing on the monitor.

Well fine, but it makes a mockery of the argument that the monitor "sells" the decision. Making a 1% call to disagree with the VAR in a cup final? Never going to happen, and everyone in the stadium knows it. So it just becomes pointless pantomime.

 

[DJIC]

Not a cup final but SPL Motherwell v Celtic on Saturday, William Callum rejected the VAR intervention after reviewing.

From 1.56

 

[QuaverRef]

Well fine, but it makes a mockery of the argument that the monitor "sells" the decision. Making a 1% call to disagree with the VAR in a cup final? Never going to happen, and everyone in the stadium knows it. So it just becomes pointless pantomime.

I agree, it appears to be more for the show than it is the decision making, but if the VAR’s sole purpose is to recommend a review because they believe the onfield referee made mistake, how much credibility would they have if they kept being overruled? If the referee is being called over, it should only be because a mistake has been made

 

[RefereeX]

Not a cup final but SPL Motherwell v Celtic on Saturday, William Callum rejected the VAR intervention after reviewing.

From 1.56

That's a poor shout from the VAR to say that is a clear and obvious (error) denial of a clear and obvious goal scoring opportunity. Well done to the referee for rejecting it.

 

[RustyRef]

In theory, if VAR is used properly, there is no way a referee should ever go to the screen and disallow with the VAR recommendation. For them to have got involved it should be so obvious it needs little more than a quick glance to rubber stamp the decision. That obviously hasn't happened, although the number of VAR interventions certainly seems to have dropped off significantly in the past few weeks (except for offsides).

 

[The Ginger Ref]

I agree, it appears to be more for the show than it is the decision making, but if the VAR’s sole purpose is to recommend a review because they believe the onfield referee made mistake, how much credibility would they have if they kept being overruled? If the referee is being called over, it should only be because a mistake has been made

and this is possibly where the process needs reviewing, as it shouldn't be "for show", it isn't wrestling.

It should be done the same way it is done in rugby.

--
Video Ref: I am going to show you the incident, this is the issue, I recomend you do this.
--
On field ref: I can see what you are showing me, I am going to change my decision.
--

As has been stated above, 99.9% of the time, we know they are going to overturn the decision, so remove the option for the on-field ref to stick with their decision and make it that if the VAR suggests the review, then a clear and obvious mistake has been made and the decision needs to be changed.

Incidents shouldn't need to be watched 10-15 times and then open to a 5 minute discussion, the only reason this is happening is the officials are over complicating things.

In theory, if VAR is used properly, there is no way a referee should ever go to the screen and disallow with the VAR recommendation. For them to have got involved it should be so obvious it needs little more than a quick glance to rubber stamp the decision. That obviously hasn't happened, although the number of VAR interventions certainly seems to have dropped off significantly in the past few weeks (except for offsides).

Offsides will never change until they adopt the UEFA technology, even then, there will still be outrage over "toe nail offsides"

 

[DJIC]

Mr Hackett again creating headlines undermining referees, I believe most referees agree it was a missed caution & a correctly ruled offside goal.

The Carabao Cup final was an entertaining match with plenty of incidents to discuss and Liverpool can feel aggrieved that the two pivotal decisions did not go their way.
The decision to rule out Virgil van Dijk’s opener at Wembley was incredibly harsh. Wataru Endo should not have been flagged offside and was merely standing his ground with Levi Colwill.
It goes back to the inconsistency of decision making among the VAR and officials and until that is improved we are going to witness these flashpoints. This happens every week up and down the country, where holding offences go unpunished.
Wataru Endo stood his ground - space is not owned by anyone on a football field - and there was nowhere he could go. Where is he expected to stand? The law says that an offence occurs when a player in an offside position interferes with the movement of the opponent towards the ball but I am not sure Colwill was getting to Van Dijk and he appeared to run into the Liverpool midfielder just as much as Endo made contact with him.
I have always said that we should favour the attacking team in decision-making such as this one. We want to see matches full of goals but it feels sometimes we’re looking for excuses to disallow them which is a real shame.

Van Dijk heads past Petrovic CREDIT: Robin Jones/Getty Images)

You could tell that the moment referee Chris Kavanagh was called to the pitchside monitor, the goal was going to be disallowed. It’s so easy to rule out, then, when you’re called over – there’s very much a “to you, to me” element with this decision making and it gives the on-field ref an easy out when they can just say “OK, I will go with what you are saying to me.”
The law states: “If a player moving from, or standing in, an offside position is in the way of an opponent and interferes with the movement of the opponent towards the ball, this is an offside offence if it impacts on the ability of the opponent to play or challenge for the ball.”

But whether the law is being correctly applied every week is open to interpretation.
Liverpool’s sense of injustice does not stop there, however, and by the time Van Dijk scored they should have been playing 10 men anyway.
Moises Caicedo’s foul on Ryan Gravenberch in the first half was reckless and it endangered the safety of an opponent. Again, there’s plenty of inconsistency here: you saw on Saturday that Harry Maguire escaped a sending off for Manchester United but Billy Gilmour was dismissed for Brighton.

Gravenberch was hobbled by Caicedo who went completely unpunished CREDIT: Robbie Jay Barratt - AMA/Getty Images

Aside from the clear and obvious nature of the offence, it left Gravenberch needing a stretcher. These types of challenges need outlawing from the game.
Yes, it is a final and you want it to remain 11 vs 11 at all times, but it was a sending off offence. Chelsea got away with one there.

 

[RustyRef]

Mr Hackett again creating headlines undermining referees, I believe most referees agree it was a missed caution & a correctly ruled offside goal.

The Carabao Cup final was an entertaining match with plenty of incidents to discuss and Liverpool can feel aggrieved that the two pivotal decisions did not go their way.
The decision to rule out Virgil van Dijk’s opener at Wembley was incredibly harsh. Wataru Endo should not have been flagged offside and was merely standing his ground with Levi Colwill.
It goes back to the inconsistency of decision making among the VAR and officials and until that is improved we are going to witness these flashpoints. This happens every week up and down the country, where holding offences go unpunished.
Wataru Endo stood his ground - space is not owned by anyone on a football field - and there was nowhere he could go. Where is he expected to stand? The law says that an offence occurs when a player in an offside position interferes with the movement of the opponent towards the ball but I am not sure Colwill was getting to Van Dijk and he appeared to run into the Liverpool midfielder just as much as Endo made contact with him.
I have always said that we should favour the attacking team in decision-making such as this one. We want to see matches full of goals but it feels sometimes we’re looking for excuses to disallow them which is a real shame.

Van Dijk heads past Petrovic CREDIT: Robin Jones/Getty Images)

You could tell that the moment referee Chris Kavanagh was called to the pitchside monitor, the goal was going to be disallowed. It’s so easy to rule out, then, when you’re called over – there’s very much a “to you, to me” element with this decision making and it gives the on-field ref an easy out when they can just say “OK, I will go with what you are saying to me.”
The law states: “If a player moving from, or standing in, an offside position is in the way of an opponent and interferes with the movement of the opponent towards the ball, this is an offside offence if it impacts on the ability of the opponent to play or challenge for the ball.”

But whether the law is being correctly applied every week is open to interpretation.
Liverpool’s sense of injustice does not stop there, however, and by the time Van Dijk scored they should have been playing 10 men anyway.
Moises Caicedo’s foul on Ryan Gravenberch in the first half was reckless and it endangered the safety of an opponent. Again, there’s plenty of inconsistency here: you saw on Saturday that Harry Maguire escaped a sending off for Manchester United but Billy Gilmour was dismissed for Brighton.

Gravenberch was hobbled by Caicedo who went completely unpunished CREDIT: Robbie Jay Barratt - AMA/Getty Images

Aside from the clear and obvious nature of the offence, it left Gravenberch needing a stretcher. These types of challenges need outlawing from the game.
Yes, it is a final and you want it to remain 11 vs 11 at all times, but it was a sending off offence. Chelsea got away with one there.

He has zero credibility. I'm old enough to remember him as a referee, although at least in this case he isn't criticising the fitness of referees as that really would be the ultimate case of the pot calling the kettle black. He keeps banging on about management of PGMOL, but he oversaw one of the worst ever periods of referee performance, and he didn't have to deal with the added complexity of VAR.

He's then somehow got confused with Endo being penalised for a foul, which he wasn't. He was clearly offside, so the point about him standing his ground is totally irrelevant.

He's then described the Caicedo challenge as reckless yet said it should be a red card. He really is just a dinosaur trying to somehow stay current in the game.

 

[socal lurker]

He's then somehow got confused with Endo being penalised for a foul, which he wasn't. He was clearly offside, so the point about him standing his ground is totally irrelevant.

I thought he was (incorrectly) arguing that he shouldn’t have to get out of the way, with a side order of the impacted defender couldn’t have got there anyway.

 

[RefereeX]

Interesting. Last night at one of the training roadshows James Mainwaring was there and he talked us through the decision making process. He said that he had mentioned to Mark Scholes at half time that they often had players stood in offside positions at attacking free kicks that then acted as blockers. Over the comms they knew that Enzo had blocked (whoever it was) and this could be an offside offence as the dropping zone was in playing distance, but due to the emergence of Gakpo being offside from Van Dijk's header and potentially in the line of vision of the goalkeeper (although he obviously wasn't, but that was a consideration) Scholes' concentration switched on to that potential issue and he wasn't certain whether Enzo was the man offside initially. This is why VAR then looked in to it, because they had picked up on their comms discussions. So effectively, Kavanagh really did go over to the screen just to sell the decision, as they already knew that if Enzo was offside from the free kick, they would be disallowing it.

That's the general gist of what he was saying I think, although don't take it as gospel, I'm not a great re-teller of stories

 

[GraemeS]

Thinking about this, I'm really not sure why these "pick plays" are related to offside at all. The fact the players is in an offside position doesn't seem to offer a meaningful advantage over doing this from an onside position (aside from opening up more locations I suppose).

In this example, there's an argument that something fairly similar happens in the eventual winning goal - but because that was a corner rather than a FK, offside doesn't come into the equation and the goal is allowed. This seems to be a theme of my posting over the last few days, but that seems inconsistent and conceptually odd to me!

Either blocking isn't acceptable, in which case it should be laid out in law 12 so as to also disallow pick plays for corners and FKs when the player isn't in an offside position. Or it is acceptable, in which case the threshold for blocking from an OSP needs to be really high so as to make it clear that it results from gaining an advantage by being offside.

 

[GraemeS]

Interesting. Last night at one of the training roadshows James Mainwaring was there and he talked us through the decision making process. He said that he had mentioned to Mark Scholes at half time that they often had players stood in offside positions at attacking free kicks that then acted as blockers. Over the comms they knew that Enzo had blocked (whoever it was) and this could be an offside offence as the dropping zone was in playing distance, but due to the emergence of Gakpo being offside from Van Dijk's header and potentially in the line of vision of the goalkeeper (although he obviously wasn't, but that was a consideration) Scholes' concentration switched on to that potential issue and he wasn't certain whether Enzo was the man offside initially. This is why VAR then looked in to it, because they had picked up on their comms discussions. So effectively, Kavanagh really did go over to the screen just to sell the decision, as they already knew that if Enzo was offside from the free kick, they would be disallowing it.

That's the general gist of what he was saying I think, although don't take it as gospel, I'm not a great re-teller of stories

I mean, two things from that! 1) It's Endo, Enzo plays for Chelsea.

2) We're frequently told (by @RustyRef in particular) that no referee would ever knowingly not make a decision in the knowledge that VAR will bail them out. This seems to fly directly counter to that - if it's such an obvious offence that the possibility had been noted before the FK, the AR should have the information that he was in an offside position and the ref has the information that a block has occurred. Surely no ref would ever dare risk the 0.2 point drop that comes from not making this call on-field?

 

[RefereeX]

Thinking about this, I'm really not sure why these "pick plays" are related to offside at all. The fact the players is in an offside position doesn't seem to offer a meaningful advantage over doing this from an onside position (aside from opening up more locations I suppose).

In this example, there's an argument that something fairly similar happens in the eventual winning goal - but because that was a corner rather than a FK, offside doesn't come into the equation and the goal is allowed. This seems to be a theme of my posting over the last few days, but that seems inconsistent and conceptually odd to me!

Either blocking isn't acceptable, in which case it should be laid out in law 12 so as to also disallow pick plays for corners and FKs when the player isn't in an offside position. Or it is acceptable, in which case the threshold for blocking from an OSP needs to be really high so as to make it clear that it results from gaining an advantage by being offside.

He doesn't have to be gaining an advantage to be offside. For him to commit an offence he has to be doing any of the following: Interfering with play (no), gaining an advantage (no) or interfering with an opponent (yes).
The blocking isn't enough for a foul under law 12, but because a player in an offside position affects a defenders ability to play the ball, it is enough for penalisation under law 11.

 

[GraemeS]

He doesn't have to be gaining an advantage to be offside. For him to commit an offence he has to be doing any of the following: Interfering with play (no), gaining an advantage (no) or interfering with an opponent (yes).
The blocking isn't enough for a foul under law 12, but because a player in an offside position affects a defenders ability to play the ball, it is enough for penalisation under law 11.

Right, I understand that. But doesn't it seem strange? Why is offside position of a player who obstructs a defender from making a challenge what determines if this is fair or not?

 

[RefereeX]

I mean, two things from that! 1) It's Endo, Enzo plays for Chelsea.

2) We're frequently told (by @RustyRef in particular) that no referee would ever knowingly not make a decision in the knowledge that VAR will bail them out. This seems to fly directly counter to that - if it's such an obvious offence that the possibility had been noted before the FK, the AR should have the information that he was in an offside position and the ref has the information that a block has occurred. Surely no ref would ever dare risk the 0.2 point drop that comes from not making this call on-field?

1. Fair enough, I'm more knowledgeable about lower league players.

2. I don't think he didn't make the decision in the knowledge that VAR would bail them, I think he wasn't certain enough to make the decision. There's a difference. Disallowing a goal that, at the time, nobody is expecting to be disallowed, you've got to be 100%

 

[GraemeS]

1. Fair enough, I'm more knowledgeable about lower league players.

2. I don't think he didn't make the decision in the knowledge that VAR would bail them, I think he wasn't certain enough to make the decision. There's a difference. Disallowing a goal that, at the time, nobody is expecting to be disallowed, you've got to be 100%

He's a long way offside by PL standards. If the AR doesn't know Endo was in an offside position, that's a real concern.

And if the information pre-FK is communicated that he's in a position to commit a blocking offence, that should be fairly straightforward for a SG1 team with comms to make the call - especially with the knowledge that VAR will rescue them if for some reason they're wrong!

 

[RefereeX]

Right, I understand that. But doesn't it seem strange? Why is offside position of a player who obstructs a defender from making a challenge what determines if this is fair or not?

Because if you rewind far enough, if you were offside, you were offside.

We've made allowances now in law for players who may be stood offside but not interfering etc, but the crux of it should still be, DON'T BE OFFSIDE.

The player clearly felt like it was advantageous to his team to be stood in that offside position, or he wouldn't have stood there, and that's the point.

 

[GraemeS]

Because if you rewind far enough, if you were offside, you were offside.

We've made allowances now in law for players who may be stood offside but not interfering etc, but the crux of it should still be, DON'T BE OFFSIDE.

The player clearly felt like it was advantageous to his team to be stood in that offside position, or he wouldn't have stood there, and that's the point.

I'm not a huge fan of "before any of us were born, the law used to be X and so we're keeping it that way" as a reason.

Sure, that's valid for understanding how it's evolved to this point, but that doesn't mean this point is sensible in and of itself. It's perfectly reasonable to look at the fact that we've found ourself in a position where blocking is fine as long as it isn't offside (at which point it becomes a "disallow goals" level of impact on a game) and query if that's really a sensible outcome?

And your last assertion is pure guesswork - he could easily have made that same block from an onside position (or at least a borderline position rather than 2 yards offside), it's at least as likely that he just switched off to the possibility of offside position at the key moment of the FK.

 

[JamesL]

Because if you rewind far enough, if you were offside, you were offside.

Not strictly true as I understand.

@Peter Grove will be along shortly to put us right on the history of offside but pretty sure from past comments on here that there has always been an element of having to be involved in active play for offside to be committed.