A&H

Pitchside monitor finally used!

Can only assume that is because FA Cup appointments are done by the FA as opposed to PGMOL and may have issued different instructions.

I reckon that @RustyRef has got it right - according to everything I've read, the practice of not using the pitchside monitor was something that was agreed between the PGMOL and the clubs in the EPL, supposedly to avoid the game being unduly interrupted and delayed. I suspect that the FA on the other hand has not recommended the same practice be adopted, leaving the referees with the option of using the monitors if they wish.
 
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The Referee Store
Epiphany moment for Old Mother Riley as he feels the rug tugging from under his little Stockley empire!
 
He only went to look at the monitor so he could tell the players what he had seen along with the VAR.

Imagine sending someone off and saying "I've been told I have got to send you off". It would cause carnage
 
I reckon that @RustyRef has got it right - according to everything I've read, the practice of not using the pitchside monitor was something that was agreed between the PGMOL and the clubs in the EPL, supposedly to avoid the game being unduly interrupted and delayed. I suspect that the FA on the other hand has not recommended the same practice be adopted, leaving the referees with the option of using the monitors if they wish.

I'm not really convinced by this. Pitchside monitors weren't used at all in FA Cup last season (e..g penalty overturned in Chelsea V Sheffield Wednesday or red card shown by Martin Atkinson that was downgraded to yellow in Wolves V Man Utd) and a penalty was given to Tranmere V Watford on Saturday without an OFR.

I don't think there has been any change in directive. I think it was just a particular circumstance.
 
The EPL never banned the use of OFR, the monitors are always available at every match.

What they did say is that that there would be a high threshold which had to be met before they would be used.

Apparently that threshold was so high no one wanted to check the monitor until now.
 
I'm not really convinced by this. Pitchside monitors weren't used at all in FA Cup last season (e..g penalty overturned in Chelsea V Sheffield Wednesday or red card shown by Martin Atkinson that was downgraded to yellow in Wolves V Man Utd) and a penalty was given to Tranmere V Watford on Saturday without an OFR.

I don't think there has been any change in directive. I think it was just a particular circumstance.
I don't understand your logic here. If pitchside monitors were not used in the FA Cup last year and they have been this year, then that would suggest if anything, that there has been a change of directive in this competition. The fact that there hasn't been a single, solitary use of them in the EPL and there has been in the FA Cup would seem to indicate a different set of parameters are in use in the two competitions.

There have been incidents in the EPL that were almost identical to the one in this game. In the Crystal Palace vs Arsenal game yesterday, the referee gave a yellow card which was then changed to a red after VAR review. The VAR review took several minutes and I kept thinking that if ever there was 'a particular circumstance' that was just crying out for a referee to review the incident himself, this surely would have been it. The fact that the referee didn't go over and use the monitor (which would probably have been much quicker, apart from anything else) suggests something else is in play, such as a different set of instructions to referees.
 
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I still don't buy the no different directive nonsense, as there were decisions yesterday that definitely merited a pitch side review, such as the Robertson and Aubameyang challenges, both of which were missed real time by the officials.

It may not be a directive as such, but there is a big difference that probably explains it. Referees for FA Cup games have nothing to do with PGMOL, and the observations are also done by named humans rather than the PGMOL evaluators that do them in PL games. So I would guess that Michael Oliver knows that he isn't allowed to use pitch side monitors in PL games, but his bosses can't touch him for using them in FA Cup games as it is nothing to do with them.
 
The official line from PGMOL is not that referees can't use the pitch side monitors, but that they must be used "sparingly".

Of course, there could be unofficial "guidance" to referees that they shouldn't use them at all.
 
I don't understand your logic here. If pitchside monitors were not used in the FA Cup last year and they have been this year, then that would suggest if anything, that there has been a change of directive in this competition. The fact that there hasn't been a single, solitary use of them in the EPL and there has been in the FA Cup would seem to indicate a different set of parameters are in use in the two competitions.

There have been incidents in the EPL that were almost identical to the one in this game. In the Crystal Palace vs Arsenal game yesterday, the referee gave a yellow card which was then changed to a red after VAR review. The VAR review took several minutes and I kept thinking that if ever there was 'a particular circumstance' that was just crying out for a referee to review the incident himself, this surely would have been it. The fact that the referee didn't go over and use the monitor (which would probably have been much quicker, apart from anything else) suggests something else is in play, such as a different set of instructions to referees.

I just don't think you can use one example to infer a change in directive, especially as there were other instances which didn't use an OFR.

We know there was a change in directive after the monitor was used in Liverpool V West Brom in January 2018. It seems unlikely to me that after two seasons of not using monitors in the FA Cup they would suddenly make a radical change.

It's always been said that monitors could be used sparingly, if it is an off the ball incident that the referee has missed or the information from VAR deviates from what the referee is expecting. Presumably Michael Oliver felt that applied here.

I don't think an OFR was at all necessary in the Palace V Arsenal game yesterday as it was a clear red card and it would probably have taken even longer if Tierney had gone to look at the monitor, especially if the monitor was on the other side to where the incident happened.

If there are monitors used in the FA Cup again then it might obviously point towards a trend and I would revise my opinion.
 
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