Peter Crouch has carved out a pretty good niche for himself after retiring as a player. He plays the likeable but slightly goofy ex professional quite well, and even comes out with a funny quote now and then too.
There’s been a lot of issues with VAR during the Premier League this season. Realistically there were always going to be a few teething problems with the system being new to the league, but nobody expected it to be this bad.
It always felt like there was going to be one absolute shocker of a decision that would break the camel’s back and force some kind of review of how it’s used.
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We always hear how it’s to be used for clear and obvious decisions, yet completely obvious mistakes are not being overturned and offside decisions turn into about five minutes of doodling on a screen by the VAR official.
Liverpool were completely robbed of a goal yesterday when Roberto Firmino’s armpit was judged to be offside – even when it probably wasn’t. Thankfully they still managed to win the game otherwise this could’ve caused one almighty storm.
There’s been plenty of opinions and accusations thrown out by pundits since the game ended yesterday. It was maybe starting to get too tense so Crouchy stepped in to offer his unique outlook on how the system might have impacted him when he played:
If I’d have been playing in the VAR era my long arms would have been offside for about 50 goals ?
— Peter Crouch (@petercrouch) November 3, 2019
The rule is supposed to be applied when a part of the body which you could use to score a goal with is offside. Not only was Firmino onside, if he scored with his armpit it would’ve been disallowed too.
Given the length of Crouch’s legs, it’s probably just as well he wasn’t around to be punished by some of these marginal decisions.