“I trust VAR. I trust the car – but not the driver.”
“It was a mistake. Accept.”
“I would be surprised if they had gone that route. It is a serious mistake, but it is a human being who made this mistake.”
The hot topic in the Premier League this week was, of course, last Saturday’s VAR error involving Liverpool’s Luis Diaz and a first-half goal away at Tottenham Hotspur that was incorrectly disallowed.
And following this, it was reported that Darren England, the VAR in Spurs’ eventual 2-1 win over Liverpool, will not officiate any of the latter club’s games for the rest of this season.
The discourse was wide-ranging and varied, ranging from calls for a complete abolition of VAR to calls for more introspection to Liverpool coach Jürgen Klopp’s suggestion that the game be replayed.
The error was so serious that it led to Professional Match Game Officials Limited (PGMOL), the body responsible for referees and their assistants in England, withdrawing those responsible and taking the unprecedented step of not allowing the VAR team’s audio recordings of the match to publish the recognized Diaz goal. You can read a full transcript here.
PGMOL, alongside the Premier League, has also committed to regularly releasing in-game audio recordings from pitch officials and VAR teams throughout this season.
Diaz’s disallowed goal sparked debate (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
While everyone else expressed their opinion on the matter, The Athletic asked Premier League managers for their opinion and whether it potentially sets a worrying precedent that a senior official could be banned from a particular team’s games.
A manager, who has been granted anonymity to speak freely on the matter, believes the decision to take Simon Hooper off the list for a week after he left Wolves at Manchester United on the opening weekend of the season in August had not awarded a penalty, there was immediately great uncertainty in the sometimes quite inexperienced group of referees.
He wonders if the rest of the referee group suddenly became nervous, knowing that the next time they made a mistake they would fall. He believes that from the early stages of the season there was a lot of pressure on match officials to get it right or suffer the consequences.
Here’s what his colleagues said…
“People make mistakes in life”
Brentford comments that England may not work on another Liverpool game in the 2023/24 season Thomas Frank said: “I think he’s only there for this season and next. I don’t know it.
“I’m not sure why they do that – maybe to take the pressure off so they’re out of the spotlight seven days later and just take a little breather and then get going again? People make mistakes in life, and if you fall off a horse or a bike, you have to get back on the horse and keep going again and learn from it. It’s okay to take a breather and then go again.”
“I trust VAR. I trust the car – but not the driver.”
Mauricio Pochettino spoke openly about refereeing and VSA, reiterating his previous concerns about the use of technology in football officiating.
“These are two different things,” said the Chelsea coach. “I trust VAR. I trust the car – but not the driver. That’s the problem.
“I was very critical from the beginning, many years ago (when VAR was first introduced). I think it’s a good decision to use the technology whether the ball goes over the line and whether it’s offside; Taking your time is important. Then we can discuss and argue whether the referee needs to be more involved to have the final say.”
On Diaz’s disallowed goal, Pochettino added: “It was a mistake for sure, wasn’t it? We have to accept the mistake. I don’t know whether it is the right decision (excluding England from the Liverpool games) or not. I cannot put myself in the shoes of Liverpool, the VAR or the referees. It was certainly difficult. I listened to what happened, we all saw it and listened.
“To set a precedent, I don’t know. I don’t know, if you are Liverpool you can accept the apology. There are too many things where you don’t know how you’re going to react if you’re not involved. If I were involved, I might stop the game there. If I’m Klopp, maybe, right?”
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“We have to give support”
When asked if a problematic example could be given, Arsenal manager replied Mikel Arteta said, “I don’t know. It’s something we don’t have a say in, we can’t manage it.
“I think they (PGMOL) are trying to make the best decisions, they are trying to protect the game, they are trying to get as much support as possible and also be ruthless when necessary. At some point we need to provide support and understand that mistakes happen; We (managers and players) make mistakes too.
“If not, I think the pressure will be so great that it will be difficult to manage.”
“I would be surprised if they had gone that route.”
Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou said he only became aware of the VAR controversy after the Liverpool game, when journalists spoke about it in his post-match press conference.
“I don’t know and I don’t know if that has been decided,” the Australian said when asked for his opinion on whether England should manage Liverpool again this season. “I would be surprised if they had gone that route. It is a serious mistake, but it is a human being who made this mistake. I don’t think anything has to be too far-reaching.
“When you listen to this (the audio), you probably think that there are better ways to communicate a clear decision in such a big situation. I hope they address this; not the person who made the mistake.
“I think this is a neglect of the game. That’s like me hanging a player out to dry just because he made a mistake. My job is to help that player improve, not to say, ‘Now you’ll never play again’.”
“We want consistency and VAR plays a role in that”
Sheffield United boss Paul Heckingbottom compared Diaz’s disallowed goal to a goal-line technology incident in a game between his club and Aston Villa in the 2019/20 season (see link below).
“In this case and that of Sheffield United at Villa, these black and white moments are more of an operational thing,” Heckingbottom said. “I heard the sound, I’m sure you heard it. Within a few seconds, everyone knows there is a mistake, and if it’s black and white (like this), something is broken. Everyone could see it.
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“From our perspective, we want consistency and VAR plays a role in that. This is how it is implemented. The example with Liverpool: It was a goal, and those in power realized after so long that it was a goal. Could something be implemented where there is an intervention to fix the problem?”
The Sheffield United goal that never happened at Villa in 2020 (Paul Ellis/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
“I would hope that we are in a place where anyone can officiate anyone.”
Wolves head coach Gary O’Neil When asked about the Diaz/VAR incident, he mostly kept his opinion to himself, but said: “If it’s just rumors (that England will be banned from the Liverpool games) then it’s probably best that I they don’t comment.
“This is also the first time I’ve heard of it, so I don’t know much about it. I would hope that we are in a place where anyone (in the PGMOL pool) can officiate anyone.
“But there will be people who work much longer than the 18 seconds I was just thinking about when you asked me! So I’m sure they’ll find a better solution than I did.”
‘There was an error. Accept’
Manchester City manager pep Guardiola urged people to move on and learn from last weekend’s events.
“I said before the game against Leipzig (City’s midweek Champions League game): It was a mistake. Accept it,” he said. “People make mistakes and VAR is there to reduce the mistakes people make, (that) we make.” Hopefully it ends here and gets better; The Premier League and the VAR people will try to improve it.
“The reason for implementing VAR was to make our game better and hopefully make it even better in the future.”
“Before VAR we had more mistakes than now”
Villa head coach spoke about the use of VAR in football earlier this week Unai Emery expressed his belief that football would be better off through the use of technology to support its match officials.
“Before we had VAR we had more mistakes than we do now,” said Emery. “Now I can accept small mistakes in the VAR. And they are just small mistakes. Of course it was a big mistake for Liverpool (in this case) – but before VAR there were always more.
“I was listening to the conversation between the referees and they were worried about their mistake but couldn’t react because the game started over. Here too I accept it. But before VAR there were more (mistakes).
“No (I don’t want the game to be repeated). I have to accept it, like we did before VAR.”
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Liverpool VAR error audio released – full transcript
(Top photos: Getty Images)