Forever Blue With Ian Cheeseman: VAR Makes The Headlines For The Wrong Reasons...Again

By the time the World Cup kicks off in Qatar next month, Manchester City will have played 14 of their Premier League fixtures.

There’s still a long way to go in the title race. City have lost just one of the ten they’ve fulfilled so far and that was at Anfield on Sunday. I could forensically go through the key moments of that game, but you saw it for yourself. 

Once again VAR came into play and you probably know by now that I hate what the introduction of that system has done to me and the beautiful game. I was in the away end at Liverpool, in among my delirious fellow City fans. I allowed myself a smile and a brief air punch, but even before the dreaded lets V A R appeared on the Anfield scoreboard I instinctively knew that the goal wasn’t yet guaranteed even though there was no obvious reason why it might be disallowed. 

Once the VAR had been announced we all knew the goal would be chalked out. Once a referee is asked to go and look at a replay almost always the decision, to let his original decision to allow the goal, will be overturned. That’s why I generally don’t celebrate goals like I used to. 

Those of us who’d paid to be there looked at each other mystified. Was it disallowed because Haaland had kicked the ball out of Allison’s hands because surely there could be no other reason? Even when the inevitable happened and the goal was wiped out there were texts to those at home watching on TV to try to work out what was going on. That can’t be right.

I’ve seen the replays now and realise that the goal didn’t stand because of a shirt pull by Haaland earlier in the move. I’d mentally noted that the referee had been allowing a lot of physical contact in the game, lots of minor fouls, that would normally been punished, had been ignored to allow the game to flow. In my eyes, up to that point, I’d felt he’d administered that flexibility even-handedly, so the decision to rule that goal out seemed massively inconsistent, but then again the second referee in Stockley Park wasn’t at Anfield.

Some people argue that VAR is not the problem, it’s how it’s used, but the problem is that unlike goal line technology VAR is run by people. That’s the real problem. Let the referee make the decisions, without the pressure from a second referee.

As far as the game is concerned, it was City’s first big challenge of the season. During the post-World Cup period City will have to play Spurs, Arsenal and Chelsea home and away, plus a trip to United and the visit of Liverpool. They’ll have games in hand due to the postponements of the fixtures against Tottenham and the Gunners. Those games will now be played in among the knockout stages of the Champions League and the FA Cup. 

In my opinion, Pep got his tactics wrong at Anfield, playing high and with a back three. If I’m being honest, despite the VAR decision, I thought Liverpool deserved their win and as Pep said at his press conference last week, the Merseysiders could still be City’s main title rivals, despite their loss of form until their win against City on Sunday. 

I feel confident that City will win their remaining Premier League fixtures before the World Cup. There are home games against Brighton, Fulham and Brentford and a trip to Leicester. After Qatar, City resume with a trip to Leeds but quite quickly the bigger challenges will come with games against Chelsea, United and Spurs. That’s when we’ll find out if the defeat at Liverpool will be irrelevant when the Premier League title is handed out in May.