Nottingham Forest boss Sean Dyche was frustrated, and you can understand why.
Casemiro’s goal for Manchester United on Saturday was the second successive week his side have conceded the opening goal from what seemed to be a wrongly awarded corner – and the video assistant referee (VAR) couldn’t look at it as corners are not one of the things it oversees.
Nicolo Savona insisted he had kept the ball in play, but assistant referee Akil Howson flagged for a corner. Six days earlier, Bournemouth’s Marcus Tavernier scored direct from a corner which should have been a goal kick.
“Two in two weeks is farcical,” Dyche said. “There has to be someone who overrides this decision, because it’s gone and they’ve put it straight in the goal.”
When Dyche was Everton boss, he did complain VAR “can’t be refereeing every moment” though.
Why the Ifab rejected calls to make corners reviewable
Coincidentally, the technical panels of the International Football Association Board (Ifab) met to discuss potential changes to VAR last week, with incorrect corners which led to goals on the agenda.
The Italian FA suggested corners should become part of VAR’s remit, and it was thought to be the most likely change to be introduced because it is normally a factual decision, rather than subjective.
That means time would not be taken up by the referee going to the pitchside monitor.
But there were mixed views from the members of the advisory panels – which feature former players, coaches and referees – and it was rejected, because it would mean checking how the ball went out on every goal that results from a corner.
There’s a real worry about adding anything to VAR which would cause additional delays.
And it would also break one of the fundamentals of Law Five that applies at all levels, with or without VAR, which says a referee cannot change a restart decision if he realises it’s incorrect after play has restarted. So, once the corner is taken and play is live, the game must continue.
If you’re not going to break that key part of Law Five, you have to review every corner – on average there’s about 10 per game in the Premier League – and make sure the decision is correct before it’s taken. Dyche reckons such a check would take five seconds, but nothing in the world of VAR is that quick.
The Ifab’s panels did recommend reviewing second yellow cards shown, because they are not such a regular event, but even that is controversial to some.
In July, Football Association chief executive Mark Bullingham said he was against any expansion of the powers of VAR. That’s important, because the Ifab board is comprised of the four United Kingdom football associations (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) with one vote each, and Fifa, with four votes.
“We don’t think there’s any need to extend the use of VAR,” Bullingham told BBC Sport. “There are regular discussions in Ifab about what VAR should be, and how it should move forward. I think our position is that we’re in a good place now.”
Match of the Day pundit Alan Shearer had some sympathy with Dyche but, like Bullingham, feels VAR shouldn’t be reviewing corners.
“I agree with Sean and understand his frustration and his anger,” he said. “I wouldn’t like to get VAR involved as it is stopping and starting as it is. I wouldn’t encourage that, but I would encourage the officials to do their job properly and get it right, not guess.”
Others argue that VAR not reviewing mistakes that are fundamental to the scoring of a goal seems to be against the whole ethos of the system.
The concern is that if you start reviewing corners, what’s next? Free-kicks? Throw-ins? Do we then just review everything?
Maybe this will come back round again, but for now it’s felt that reviewing corners needs a lot more discussion about the potential impact before a change is considered.
Even if it was an option for VAR there’s no guarantee Casemiro’s goal would have been ruled out, and it definitely would have taken some time to come to a decision, whatever that was.
With the camera not directly on the goal-line, it could be argued that there wasn’t definitive proof of an error, as Arsenal found out to their cost at Newcastle two years ago.
Bournemouth’s defence was hit hard over the summer with Illia Zabarnyi, Dean Huijsen and Milos Kerkez all sold, but they could have found their playing resources in that department stretched even thinner, because Marcos Senesi has wrongly escaped two red cards this season.
Earlier this season the Premier League’s Key Match Incidents (KMI) Panel unanimously voted that he should have been sent off via a VAR review for handling the ball as Liverpool’s Hugo Ekitike was about to run through on goal.
And now the KMI Panel has ruled, on a split 3-2 decision, that referee Jarred Gillett made a mistake in rejecting a VAR review at the monitor suggesting he upgraded his decision to a red for bringing down Crystal Palace’s Ismaila Sarr last month.
Of the five times a referee has turned down a review at the screen in the past two seasons, two have been judged to be wrong.
Senesi should have been suspended for Bournemouth’s home win over Wolves, the victory over Nottingham Forest and Sunday’s loss at Manchester City.
West Ham suffer through VAR – but delay gives them a goal
West Ham United and Newcastle United fans inside the London Stadium had to wait an age for a penalty to be overturned on Sunday.
It seemed pretty clear that Malik Thiaw had got a touch on the ball before any contact on Jarrod Bowen. It’s the second time Newcastle have benefited from such a VAR review in recent weeks, after Arsenal had a spot-kick cancelled when Nick Pope got to the ball before colliding with Viktor Gyokeres.
But it was three minutes and 11 seconds from the initial penalty award to the referee announcing his decision to overturn it to the crowd, and play was stopped for a total of four minutes and 18 seconds.
West Ham shouldn’t feel too aggrieved, however. Five minutes were added on at the end of the half, and Sven Botman scored an own goal just as that was running out. VAR took away the penalty, but added on enough time for West Ham to grab a goal.
