Premier League have got the VAR rules wrong and fans are getting fewer goals

They have got the rules wrong. Again. Last month I wrote about how Premier League referees and VARs have got the new handball rule wrong. They have disallowed goals that the rule says they should have allowed.

They have also got the VAR rules wrong. Technology is being used in a way it should not be used. Goals have been disallowed that according to the rules should have been allowed.

The most recent example would have put Tottenham 2-0 up at Leicester last Saturday. It was disallowed and Tottenham lost 2-1. VAR Chris Kavanagh told referee Paul Tierney that Heung-Min Son had been offside in the build-up.

I keep hearing spokesmen for the officials and Premier League say that a referee’s decision should be overturned after a VAR review only if it was clearly and obviously wrong – unless the decision was offside, which is different.

This is not what the rules say. The VAR Protocol can be found near the end of the 2019-20 edition of Laws of the Game. Section 2 on Reviewable Match-Changing Decisions/Incidents says: “The referee’s original decision will not be changed unless there was a ‘clear and obvious error’ (this includes any decision made by the referee based on information from another match official e.g. offside).”

In other words, offside decisions are like all other decisions, and they should be changed only if they are clearly and obviously wrong.

This one wasn’t. The television replays watched by Kavanagh were inconclusive. We were shown a frame with blurred images of Son and Jonny Evans from which sharp lines had been drawn down to the ground to give the impression that Son’s shoulder might have been offside by a millimetre or two.

If the lines had been drawn in different places we would have got a different impression. And they could easily have been drawn in different places. Nobody could be sure whether Son’s shoulder ended with this fuzzy pixel or that fuzzy pixel. In any case, the picture seemed to be after the ball had been played to Son.

A spokesman for the Premier League said: “The key thing to note is that the VAR can only use the technology and the information at their disposal.” On that point I agree. My complaint is that when the evidence from technology is inconclusive the VAR cannot say that the referee made a clear and obvious error, and if they cannot say the referee made a clear and obvious error then according to the rules the referee’s original decision should stand.

Two other parts of the VAR protocol are not being followed in the Premier League.

Section 4 on Procedures says: “The referee is the only person who can make the final decision; the VAR has the same status as the other match officials and can only assist the referee.” In practice VARs are making final decisions that referees then repeat to players and spectators.

The same section has a bit about allowing an attack to develop to see if a goal is scored: “Delaying the flag/whistle for an offence is only permissible in a very clear attacking situation when a player is about to score a goal or has a clear run into/towards the opponents’ penalty area.”

Only in those situations should play continue – but in those situations it should continue. In the Premier League assistants still raise their flag and referees still blow their whistle when a player “has a clear run into/towards the opponents’ penalty area”. Officials are convinced an offence has been committed, but they might be clearly and obviously wrong, and if they are we will never find out whether the attacking team could have scored. Goals are being lost to the game against the laws of the game.

Alan Shearer, like almost everyone else, is too critical of missed chances

Even the top Premier League scorer of all time can overestimate the chance of a shot going into the goal.

On Match of the Day last Saturday Alan Shearer discussed Newcastle’s 0-0 draw with Brighton. “Newcastle were really poor,” he said. “But they still had two very, very good chances that they should have scored from.”

Those chances were a shot by Miguel Almiron from 13 yards that was saved and a header by Joelinton from nine yards that went wide.

What does somebody mean when they say a footballer should have scored? They must mean that from this position in their opinion a goal would be scored more often than not.

If the chance of scoring was greater than 50 per cent the expected goals value of the attempt would be greater than 0.5. And if a team had two such attempts the expected goals value of both attempts added together would be greater than 1.0.

Newcastle had nine other attempts – so 11 in all – yet their expected goals total for the whole match varied between 0.6 with Opta, whose figures are used on MOTD, and 0.8 with some other stats compilers.

Shearer scored 260 goals in 441 Premier League appearances between 1992 and 2006. To him any opportunity might seem better than it does to almost everybody else. Whatever the reason, he overestimates the prospect of a shot going in. As do lesser players and fans who have only ever watched the game.

Speaking about Manchester City’s eight goals against Watford, Shearer said: “It should have been 12 or 13”. Expected goals totals varied between six and seven.

It is clear that there are too many words

In my first piece on VAR I used the phrase clear and obvious error. I used it because it is in the rules. It is unnecessarily long, though.

Can somebody give me an example of an error that might be clear but not obvious? Or obvious but not clear? The online Oxford dictionary says clear means obvious and obvious means clear. Only one word was needed, and that word should have been clear – because it is shorter.

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