Michail Antonio might’ve riled plenty of Liverpool fans over his recent assertion that West Ham would finish above the Reds, just before he endured an anonymous display when the Irons lost at Anfield.
However, many of a Merseyside persuasion could well be nodding their heads in agreement over comments he’s made in the wake of the VAR catastrophe which deprived Luis Diaz of a fair goal in our 2-1 defeat to Tottenham last weekend.
The 33-year-old was speaking on The Footballer’s Football Podcast on Wednesday when he called for the technology to be scrapped, believing that its introduction to the Premier League in 2019 has caused more issues than it’s solved.
Antonio said: “VAR should be binned. That’s my thoughts. It’s not the first time I’ve said it; it’s not going to be the last time I say it.
“VAR got brought in because of the debates going on after every game. Too many human errors were happening so we brought in technology so they wouldn’t be so many debates. But if you look at the stats, the debates are still going on.
“Now we have technology and there are still human errors. It’s got to the stage where you need to accept human errors are part of football and it made football better. People are losing their heads over it but [at the] end of the day referees are human and they can make mistakes.
“People are trying to change it, but the changes are not making it any better, so you might as well bring it back.”
Without VAR, Diaz’s goal would’ve been disallowed after the assistant referee flagged for offside and the match would’ve continued apace.
It would’ve riled Liverpool fans for sure, given that it was evidently the wrong call, but the fury was exacerbated by Darren England having the opportunity to review it from Stockley Park and still, somehow, making such a horrendous mess of things.
VAR isn’t a problem in and of itself; it’s the implementation of it which enrages Premier League fans, players and managers on a near-weekly basis. If the officials tasked with using it simply did the job better, the technology would likely be met with near-universal approval.
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However, Antonio does have a point in saying that things haven’t improved since its implementation in England. If anything, refereeing standards have arguably declined even further in that time, with far too many of the errors that it was brought in to eradicate still occurring.
There is a place for VAR in football, but it needs to be operated much better. Its purpose is to eliminate clear and obvious mistakes, but when referees are taking more than two minutes to reach a decision and sometimes still getting it wrong, it’s little wonder that people despise it so much.
Until such time that standards improve, it’s hard to blame Antonio for believing that we all might simply be better off without it.
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He’s right VAR was introduced because tv was replaying decisions and disecting them to show up the officials. For me to completely change the way we enjoyed football for this was knee jerk and unecessary. So refs and linesmen get things wrong, that’s part of being human. The guy who flagged Diaz offside got it wrong, it happens, but to have that VAR debacle was adding to what we already knew viz, he was onside but the linesman was wrong. In past days it was a moan in the alehouse and that was it. Oh to be able to celebrate a goal and simply fume at officials for a day or two.