VAR

In principle it sounds like a good idea, anything that improves refereeing decisions and gets things right has to be a good thing doesn't it?

It hasn't worked out that simple however, we can get past teething troubles, for instance the length of time it takes for the final decision to come through, that can be worked on and fine tuned.

How best to use it, now that is where problems have arisen, the pen taking with the keeper having to have a foot on the line, that has already proven farcical, with pen retakes for the slightest of distance a keeper moves. Common sense has never been top of the list of refereeing rules being applied, ffs if it isn't dramatically noticeable then feck it, let it stand. Don't actually need VAR to work that out either, an official should be able to see that.


Pen offences, hand balls, it is all getting pernickety now, again though it is the rules and not actually VAR that is the problem. Imo it should just be straight forward and allowing managers so many VAR calls, the same as tennis players do, and stop every fecking incident being referred to VAR. I can take the odd feck up by the ref/lno, over stop starts every 2 mins, while hanging around for VAR.


The one that really bugs me though is in the EPL, every single goal has to be checked, it just takes away all the spontaneity of a goal celebration. Here you have fans jumping up celebrating a goal, players half heartedly celebration (knowing they have to have VAR confirming it) then it being chopped off and the opposition fans celebrating a non goal. FFS what a farce.

You end up having fans half heartedly celebrating, no point putting a full blown celebration when it could be chopped off, then when it gets confirmed as a goal they kinda go yes a goal, when a goal celebration should be YEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSssssssssssssssssss a fecking GOALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLllllllllllllllllllllllllllll. Completely takes away the unbridled joy from celebrating your team scoring a goal. Normally you jump up, quickly glancing towards the lino to see if his flag is raised, and giving it full blown euphoria in a mino second later when it isn't raised for offside or an infringement with the ref signalling a goal.

So as it is being used just now i'm not a fan, they need to be looking at improving how they're using it to assist refs without taking away the enjoyment of the game as a spectacle.

The City “winner” that was disallowed was a farce because of the rule change that favours defenders. Any handball that leads to a goal.... goal disallowed & foul awarded but if the ball were to hit a defender in the same accidental manner & not lead to a goal, there is no penalty. That is a ridiculous state of affairs.

Seems to have settled down a bit now, cause the ref doesn't get any of his decisions overturned, even when he's wrong, feck knows what the point of it is really. Canny be arsed looking to see what they're paying for it but seems a waste of money when all they've done is cause disruption to celebrating goals and just ignoring every other incident that happens.

On evidence so far, if we had it up here they wouldn't have overturned Collum's decisions for Devlin's goal being chopped off, or Dykes sending off, would've been interesting to see if they'd have chopped off Sevco's first goal from the free kick right enough, with every goal being checked by VAR, Goldson clearly interfered with play running across Stewart's line of vision putting him off as the ball went past him, and would've been deemed offside.

I see Sevco are making a show of wanting VAR brought to the SPFL Premiership for next season, like it will give them more points because they're always being hard done to by wrong refereeing decisions, like the 2 offside goals they've had against us (one at Ibrox from their free kick and Morelos at the TMA), and Hellander getting away with a red card foul on Dykes at the TMA.

Don’t forget the encroachment at Christie’s Pen the other day, the player that cleared the rebound was in the box (foot was on the line, and if on the line is in the box; then he encroached) - if they get the retake & score then it’s a completely different game.

No idea what happened in their game against Celtic, tend not to watch them play as it annoys me how much post match time they get spent on them by pundits, as well as the amount of highlights that are shown, compared to everyone else, so I just FF past them. As usual though, they think they're hard done by, and have absolutely no clue the amount of breaks they get against the diddy teams of the league (everyone else outside of the Glasgow erse cheeks).

I'd love VAR if it was used properly, they wouldn't get away with half the shite they do now, esp Morelos with his wee kicks off the ball, but VAR can easily be misused and incidents ignored just the same as they are now, so i'd be sceptical of things being any better under VAR. It's a complete abortion the way it's used in the EPL too.

I FF to the incidents of note & watch them but otherwise I agree with you.

And yeah the EPL has ruined the concept of VAR. if they had left it at clear & obvious errors then we would probably be okay with it. Then the marginal offsides would be allowed to go & the reviews would take half the time.

Yeah in Scotland we see linos getting offside decisions wrong by feet, not mm's, i'd settle for it just being clear and obv, that would improve things greatly from the useless feckers we have making bad calls just now. Same goes for penalties. Dunno about Sevco, but Livi would have at least 5 more points than we do now (Accies away, Hearts home & Hibs away), and they were clear and obv on Sportcene post match. That isn't even counting all the wrong uns against Sevco.