Man United ‘goal’ proves there is still a place for VAR in football | OneFootball

If you were a Man United on Friday night, you were ecstatic about the absence of VAR as Harry Maguire headed home a late winning goal that should never have stood.

If you are a supporter of Leicester City you were, understandably, very much yearning for the pause in celebrations while an official in Stockley Park reviews the preceding seconds of action before informing the referee: No Goal.

That didn’t happen, of course, as the Football Association decided this season that VAR would not be in operation until the fifth round. This is much more preferable to the previous policy of using VAR at Wembley and Premier League grounds only, meaning it would be in use in some games but not others in the same round.

It was a necessary change to provide greater consistency and fairness to the competition, not that that will be of much consolation to the Foxes.

Leicester manager Ruud van Nistelrooy, who could really do with a win, said it was “hard to swallow” losing in such a manner, and who could blame him? “We were not defeated in Fergie time. We were defeated in ‘offside time’. This wasn’t necessary,” he remarked.

Even Man United boss Ruben Amorim admitted the goal should not have stood, although it would have impossible for him to argue otherwise. “With VAR it was not a goal, and I think it’s important to have because it’s fair for the game,” he said.

The Portuguese is one of the few head coaches making the case for VAR at the moment. The complaints over its implementation seemingly grow with every passing week, despite the fact fewer mistakes are being made year on year.

It does slow the game down, sometimes to an infuriating degree, and there is anger over an apparent lack of consistency, particularly when it comes to handball and red card decisions.

But its existence does eliminate the kind of officiating howlers we witnessed on Friday night. The ability to review goals means that a glaringly obvious mistake on the part of the referee or assistant can be rectified.

The counter argument to that is, well, we shouldn’t be seeing those kind of errors in the first place. Maguire – and a host of his Man United teammates – was so blatantly offside that it shouldn’t need someone watching on a screen miles away to make the right call. Perhaps this is the kind of human error that is inevitable at the end of a football match that lasts for almost 100 minutes, but nonetheless disappointing to see.

We need VAR in some guise, but we also need higher standards across the board.

Read – Amorim insists Man United must be ‘careful with transfers’

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