It really has got to the point where there’s not much else you can say about VAR. Every weekend it’s become a talking point due to overturning some very marginal decisions.
It’s not even just the decisions that annoys the fans, it’s the length of time it takes to come up with any kind of ruling as well. A goal used to be pure joy, now it’s usually reduced to spending minutes watching a man with his finger to his ear and just waiting to be put out of your misery.
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You can imagine this would be a different story if Man City hadn’t gone on to win the game. Raheem Sterling had a goal disallowed for a very tight offside call. He took to Twitter to try and make light of it:
Happy to improve my VAR overruled goals record today again ? damn this thing gonna kill me bro ??? #cursed pic.twitter.com/pLSjYkLp5Z
— Raheem Sterling (@sterling7) November 23, 2019
That specific image does show part of his shoulder being offside. The two major issues with this particular decision are the fact we can be sure the goal would be overturned if the ball hit the front of his shoulder, so you could say that isn’t a part of the body you can score with.
The bigger issue is the actual frames used for making the call. We’ve seen that the screen can sometimes be slightly out with the timing, which can make all the difference.
Frank Lampard won’t agree, but it’s probably just as well that City did win the game. Who knows how Pep Guardiola would have reacted to it this time?