Brother doesn't need to be anywhere near international duty at the age of 35 unless it's a tournament.

Preach

YNWA.2013 said:

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So in a week/week and a half, we'll get yet another apology from PGMOL that the decision was wrong. But a lot of good that does us.

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https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/c6n8d8kl125vo

And here is the KMI panel saying we were on the wrong end of another refereeing decision.

YNWA.2013 said:

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YNWA.2013 said:

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So in a week/week and a half, we'll get yet another apology from PGMOL that the decision was wrong. But a lot of good that does us.

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https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/c6n8d8kl125vo

And here is the KMI panel saying we were on the wrong end of another refereeing decision.

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My hot take that honestly probably isn't that hot anymore is that the EPL needs to introduce two on field referees. The game is too fast and physical in 2026, and there are too many shenanigans that go on in the box to only have one referee anymore. Particularly on set pieces. Chunk VAR to the curb, add another on field referee, and depending on what side of the pitch the ball is on, one referee would handle deeper lying players and outfield players or breakaways, and the other would find a spot to better observe the backline defenders and attackers that are battling for space in the box.

This will never happen and its shame, because I think adding a second on field referee would cut down on ALOT OF THE BS that goes on on the pitch right now. Then you get rid of VAR and keep semi-automated offside and move on.

Don't disagree and have thought that for years. But I'll take VAR just doing their basic job at the moment. The Isak shirt pull, this incident, the red card on Grav, the ridiculous goal Man City got against MU a while back, and the keep interference not called against MU vs AV this past weekend to just name a few. It's absolutely absurd and disgraceful with the misses, constant admitted mistakes, and just inconsistencies with VAR and non VAR rulings alone.

Edit: sorry, thought the link above was about the Kerkez penalty on Sunday.

hoosierAG said:

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Don't disagree and have thought that for years. But I'll take VAR just doing their basic job at the moment. The Isak shirt pull, this incident, the red card on Grav, the ridiculous goal Man City got against MU a while back, and the keep interference not called against MU vs AV this past weekend to just name a few. It's absolutely absurd and disgraceful with the misses, constant admitted mistakes, and just inconsistencies with VAR and non VAR rulings alone.

Edit: sorry, thought the link above was about the Kerkez penalty on Sunday.

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This. If VAR was done correctly, I think we would all say it would be for the benefit of the game. Replays in football, basketball, etc work decently well, but the EPL does such a garbage job of it.

I think 1) the rules probably need to be more black & white instead of this huge subjective gray area it currently is. All this talk about "Does it meet the threshold for blah blah blah" is bollocks. Some of these referees are clearly incompetent and there's no owning up to mistakes. So 2) there should be some better accountability. Right now, nothing happens. Stuart Atwell gets to carry on as if nothing happened. He gets his assignments for the next matchweek with zero repercussions . That should change. Whether that is a fine, unable to work games for x amount of weeks, demoted to linesman or to the Championship after a certain number of demerits? Not sure what the answer is but the referees can't get better if they are not held accountable to a certain standard.

I am convinced VAR in Europe is the way it is because they refuse to adopt anything the Americans do. They can't have coaches challenges where the on field ref is the only one doing the review and the opportunity to overturn a bad call is limited. They can't have a consistent panel of people whose sole job is to make VAR reviews from a central office on game day. The NFL fought the instant replay battle for what felt like 20 years before they started to get things right. How about learn lessons from other people's mistakes every now and then.

Hell yes. Preach.