“I’d be screaming at the referee.”
Jamie Carragher has launched a passionate attack on the state of VAR, PGMOL and the current situation with match officials in the Premier League.
Speaking on Monday Night Football, the Sky Sports pundit reflected on Saturday’s unprecdented and costly VAR mistake which arguably cost Liverpool their match against Tottenham.
Luis Diaz scored a goal to give his side the lead, only for the linesman to rule it offside. VAR then confirmed that it was a goal, but Darren England, who was in charge of the monitor, was confused about the on-field decision, not knowing that it needed to be overturned, rather than confirmed, so the goal was never given.
“The bit where I’m really struggling is that they must know within two seconds because Tottenham have taken a free-kick, they haven’t kicked off,” said Carragher.
“I’d be screaming at the referee that a mistake has been made but maybe they’re saying they have to wait until the ball goes out of play. They’re saying they stayed with protocol, that they’re not allowed to stop it but I don’t believe that. They panicked, they froze.
“I know that’s the rule but that’s a red-tape rule. If they had reversed it, we’d have been praising their leadership.
"This season has not been good enough"
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“There’s talk that the officials didn’t know until half-time that a mistake had been made but when that ball goes out of play [after the incident] the look on that referee’s face… it’s a look of something has gone wrong.”
The PGMOL released a statement acknowledging their mistake, but Liverpool have not accepted this, and requested for the recorded audio between match officials to be released.
“The only way Howard Webb and PGMOL will gain any sort of credibility back was to get it out there,” said the former Liverpool defender.
“I think it’s unbelievable that all the parties involved haven’t released the audio. I find it unfathomable.”
Although this case is unprecedented in terms of VAR actually working by pointing out that Diaz goal was onside, but being ruled out because of human error, the Virtual Assistant Referee has made a number of other crucial errors since its inception, and people are losing confidence in it.
“I don’t think the feeling about VAR has been lower. It’s at crisis point. It’s not just this decision – it’s on the back of other incidents this season, like the Wolves one with Manchester United on Monday Night Football.
“I don’t want to pile into the officials or Howard Webb – they must feel awful. I’m not into the conspiracy theories – no one gains anything from this.
“We’ve all made mistakes. But this is a horrendous mistake, unprecedented.”
Related links:
- VAR controversy hides the biggest unanswered question from this weekend
- “No-one is making mistakes on purpose” – Classy Jurgen Klopp accepts VAR mistake
- Mike Dean admits that he failed on VAR decision in order to help his “mate”; Anthony Taylor
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