The View From Away – West Ham and VAR

West Ham United. The Academy of Football. Bobby Moore. Declan Rice. Gold and Sullivan. The observer of some very, very bad officiating in the past Premier League campaign. There is no secret that there have been some exceptionally bad calls made during our matches for us (see Chicharito’s hand ball goal in the Fulham match) and against us (“the Liverpool offside”).

Every West Ham fan who was awake this year is aware of this call. It led to the official (in the frame of the image) to get a weekend off as a result . In a match that the Hammers had a lot of momentum, a possible 1-0 win turned into a 1-1 draw. West Ham managed to go on a 2-1-1 streak after this (winning at home against both Fulham and Newcastle, drawing at Selhurst Park, then losing 1-0 at City, which we will talk about later).

In a season of “might have been” this call stands out in the minds of all Hammers fans as a reason the calls for Video Assistant Refereeing came out loud and clear.  VAR is coming next year, and it will be used in four game-changing scenarios: goals (and the play leading up to goals), penalty decisions, red cards (explicitly not yellow cards), and cases of player misidentification. Let’s consider what would have happened in the West Ham v Liverpool match.

The goal had been given, and as mentioned, the Premier League will review all scoring plays (like the NFL). The VAR official would have to look at the goal and give feedback to the on-pitch officials. That person then calls into a radio to the on-field officials who then indicate if we have a good goal or if there is an issue. At that time, at the referee’s discretion, the referee can make the decision to review the play or accept the VAR decision. The VAR will be in the control room, where the Premier League emulates the NHL where the call is made NOT by someone at the stadium, but by someone in a control room in a central location watching all the matches, with all the feeds. This war room approach leads to an individual who is not influenced by the sound of the crowd nor the previous actions in the match looking at the replay. The VAR can communicate with the referee and look at the footage together. Ideally in this case, offside would be given, and (hopefully) less than 90 seconds of time would be needed to be added on.

Looking at the NHL, this process had lots of growing pains. Communications were hard, agreeing replays was hard, and some angles were not always given to the control room. A few public gaffes lead to these issues being ironed out, and most of the delays have dropped significantly in duration. However, there are still questionable errors in the process. We all will have to expect similar issues in the Premier League next year. One of the more difficult moments will be issues like Anderson’s foul that led to a penalty for Man City. Let’s look at that.

Bernardo cuts into the box coming from the left of the West Ham goal. At that time, Anderson contacts the back of Bernardo. With a minor hesitation, Bernardo goes down (I want to be clear that I’m not saying he delayed his fall, but there is a split second where he is up after Anderson contacts his back, and then he goes down). Immediately the referee points the spot. Here, the VAR would be able to look back at this and decide “Is that a foul or not that I should suggest review? Was there something to point out?” I would argue that he would NOT indicate that the play should be reviewed.

This is purely a judgement call on the referee’s behalf based on a good position and what appears to be more than casual contact with the attackers back, and from his point of view, the on-field official has made his call. There is no dive, there is more than minor contact, and that decision MUST remain with the officials at the match, otherwise we are in the case where the match is being called from another location, and that should not be the result. Conversely, let’s look at another call where I believe the VAR would indicate that the referee SHOULD look.

I want VAR, as I think we will get more consistent refereeing, but we are asking the officials to allow play to continue and then to judge after, or to lead themselves into a preference for the attacker that may not be justified.

Mo Salah (you knew this was coming, right?) is cutting into the box against Newcastle. There is a defender in front of him and one behind him. The Newcastle defender behind Salah (Paul Dummett) contacts Salah’s arm, and Salah goes down with his arms in the air. Mark Clattenburg reviewed Mo Salah recently for NBC and showed a pattern: if Salah has no real chance of scoring, he goes down quite easily in the box, and this case is no exception. The referee is some distance away and does NOT have a great view (there are two players blocking his line of sight), but he sees the arms in the air, the ball rolling away, and points to the spot.

Immediately, the VAR should call down to the referee and RECOMMEND review. This would allow the referee the opportunity to more correctly adjudicate the awarding of a penalty. Let me make clear that I believe that the player would have been issued a yellow card for simulation, and no penalty would be awarded, but that is my interpretation, and the referee should be allowed to make his own mind up with a better view which MAY lead him to overturning his call, but may not. Finally, let’s look at a goal that should been given if there was VAR and it was used correctly.

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Lucas Perez is fed a pass near the end of the match against Leicester. The sideline official waits a second and puts his flag up as Perez plays the ball. In a world with VAR, a close call such as this would have the linesman keep his flag down, allowing play to continue; if a goal results, the VAR would call in if the goal were offside or if he wanted the referee to review it. Here I pause a little, as this begins a bit of a gray area for me. I want VAR, as I think we will get more consistent refereeing, but we are asking the officials to allow play to continue and then to judge after, or to lead themselves into a preference for the attacker that may not be justified.

What we are talking about is changing the mindset of the official to decrease his ability to adjudicate the game. This does take the game out of the hands of the local officials somewhat, and I fear that it may end up causing a great deal of confusion and delay, but in the end,  it should lead to more consistent and properly given results.

While I do write from a West Ham fan’s point of view, this isn’t just a problem for West Ham. For many years, fans of clubs in the lower half or lower third of the EPL have complained about the “big 6” getting friendly refereeing. I might argue that they are more easily spotted by those clubs concerned about their ability to stay in the top flight of English football, but every club suffers from bad decisions that should be easily overturned. Chelsea had issues with Salah a couple of times this year. Wilfred Zaha has been labelled a diver. Perhaps West Ham only beats Fulham 2-1 rather than 3-1, or the dynamics of the loss of a goal causes the players to have a letdown and the other team takes control of the match. Perhaps if nothing else, the immediate review will allow the occasional dive to be penalized rather than gifting a penalty opportunity.

While I have a lot of hope for VAR, I’m more concerned that it will change the complexion of the game at critical times (sometimes for the right reasons, but perhaps for the wrong reasons too). We as fans must be ready to accept that this will change the game we love somewhat, and only time will tell if it is for good or for bad. Some pundits have come out quite against VAR saying it changes the game too much. Many similar comments have been raised in many other professional leagues, and the adoption (while not perfect) has availed the spectator a much more fair contest in a world where the players are bigger and the action is much faster.