If we were ever to get back into the Premier League, VAR would be to our huge advantage.
Cast your mind back to the Curbishley glory years. How many times did we play the "big" clubs and get a very iffy decision given against us? It happened all the time. At least with VAR we wouldn't suffer so much and the big clubs would get pulled up if they scored an offside goal against us.
Really. So Var would give smaller clubs an advantage over bigger clubs.
IMO yes. Imagine we're playing Liverpool away. It's 1-1 and Salah breaks away in the last minute and scores. He's marginally offside. Do you think the linesman is going to wave his flag or just keep it down with thousands of scousers behind him going mad? Answer, he's going to keep it down - as linesmen have done at Liverpool for years. Now with VAR the goal will be correctly over-ruled.
If we were ever to get back into the Premier League, VAR would be to our huge advantage.
Cast your mind back to the Curbishley glory years. How many times did we play the "big" clubs and get a very iffy decision given against us? It happened all the time. At least with VAR we wouldn't suffer so much and the big clubs would get pulled up if they scored an offside goal against us.
Really. So Var would give smaller clubs an advantage over bigger clubs.
IMO yes. Imagine we're playing Liverpool away. It's 1-1 and Salah breaks away in the last minute and scores. He's marginally offside. Do you think the linesman is going to wave his flag or just keep it down with thousands of scousers behind him going mad? Answer, he's going to keep it down - as linesmen have done at Liverpool for years. Now with VAR the goal will be correctly over-ruled.
Quite right, I think every time I've been to Man U, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea et al we've had dodgy penalties against us, play pulled back when we were about to score, good goals disallowed. players unjustly sent off.
If we were ever to get back into the Premier League, VAR would be to our huge advantage.
Cast your mind back to the Curbishley glory years. How many times did we play the "big" clubs and get a very iffy decision given against us? It happened all the time. At least with VAR we wouldn't suffer so much and the big clubs would get pulled up if they scored an offside goal against us.
Like Villa being denied a clear penalty at Arsenal yesterday? The ref just ignored it.
I agree with the analysis on MOTD2 that VAR at the moment is predominantly being used to strike off goals rather than to give goals (or at least a penalty), it's only making a negative contribution
The mud on the end of the attacker's boot is 1mm ahead of the defender - offside, no goal Attacker wrestled to the floor or blatant handball by a defender - no penalty Ball hits defender's hand accidentally, making no difference to play - no penalty (correctly) Ball hits attacker's hand accidentally, making no difference to play - handball, no goal
We are in the reptillian age with this stuff right now. As a result of VAR I do think the rules with offisides need to be updated ie, should someone really be given offside if its a boot or a hand thats off? Ultimately I think VAR will be essential, but itll take 5-10 years before it becomes as effiecient as it is in rugby or cricket.
OK, it removes the spontaneity of the human refereeing element, but lets face it, do we really want things like Maradona's hand of god, or Lampards ghost goal against Germany to still happen going forward? Do we look back on those as being from that innocent/charming/fun time before VAR?
Two poor decisions over the weekend; first - second goal for Spuds ruled out for offside at Leicester - a bloody fag paper in it; second one - the penalty for handball NOT given for Villa at Arsenal - seriously, how did the ref miss it? Not knowing the result I just sat waiting for VAR to kick in- it didn't. So have gone from a fairly benevolent stance re. VAR I'm slowly being ground down and becoming anti-VAR.
We are in the reptillian age with this stuff right now. As a result of VAR I do think the rules with offisides need to be updated ie, should someone really be given offside if its a boot or a hand thats off? Ultimately I think VAR will be essential, but itll take 5-10 years before it becomes as effiecient as it is in rugby or cricket.
OK, it removes the spontaneity of the human refereeing element, but lets face it, do we really want things like Maradona's hand of god, or Lampards ghost goal against Germany to still happen going forward? Do we look back on those as being from that innocent/charming/fun time before VAR?
Lampard's goal would be given because of goal line technology, nothing to do with VAR.
Looking at some of the VAR close decisions are like looking at Einstein's warped space time; It's either an optical illusion or the lines are in the wrong place. VAR is there to stop the mistakes, not to prove it can split a micron.
They have got to sort out the offside calls. Linesmen are giving the attacking player the benefit of the doubt only to be overruled by VAR fag paper calls. Meanwhile handball calls and at least one possible red card were ignored. The system appears to be working in the interests of defenders.
The biggest problem with VAR and the offside calls is that the linesmen have been told that if it's very marginal, to let the play develop, knowing it can be checked afterwards if a goal results from the play. Although sound in theory, the effect of it is that the fans/team who score have to go through the horrible emotional crash of pure celebration turned to frustration, whilst the defending team get a big pick me up. Both in Leicester/Spurs and Chelsea/Liverpool games this has probably contributed to the defending side getting a goal soon after. Also leads to the feeling that you don't want to celebrate until the game has kicked off and all is confirmed, which takes away from the greatest joy in football; a goal celebration.
Perhaps a potential solution would be the assistant ref to let the play develop, and if there is a goal, instantly raise his flag to indicate he thinks it's probably offside. Therefore the scoring team/fans wouldn't begin to celebrate and would allow the VAR check, and then a goal could be awarded if the attacker was onside?
I agree with your first paragraph, it is more or less what I stated a few pages back.
Don't agree with your second paragraph though, Fred.
The biggest problem with VAR and the offside calls is that the linesmen have been told that if it's very marginal, to let the play develop, knowing it can be checked afterwards if a goal results from the play. Although sound in theory, the effect of it is that the fans/team who score have to go through the horrible emotional crash of pure celebration turned to frustration, whilst the defending team get a big pick me up. Both in Leicester/Spurs and Chelsea/Liverpool games this has probably contributed to the defending side getting a goal soon after. Also leads to the feeling that you don't want to celebrate until the game has kicked off and all is confirmed, which takes away from the greatest joy in football; a goal celebration.
Perhaps a potential solution would be the assistant ref to let the play develop, and if there is a goal, instantly raise his flag to indicate he thinks it's probably offside. Therefore the scoring team/fans wouldn't begin to celebrate and would allow the VAR check, and then a goal could be awarded if the attacker was onside?
Fans would still celebrate. Number of times over the years the flag has been raised well before the ball goes in and the crowd still go mental.
I missed the Wigan game and was at the Foxes/Spurs game where 2 VAR decisions were made. My first 'live' VAR experience and not a satisfactory one. The Leicester disallowed goal, fans going wild, players celebrating then the big screen tells us that VAR is in operation .. goal disallowed .. no inkling, no information as to why, the fans are left totally in the dark. Why if TV viewers can see the whole episode, why why are spectators at the game not allowed the same access and not even an announcement over the pa system ?. .. very similar situation with the Spurs disallowed goal, all very unsatisfactory although of course when the goals were disallowed, huge cheers from the relevant fans.
Also, during the game, Sissoko lost the ball in midfield (bad control) and followed through studs up on Maddison, the best player on the field, who was thrown head over heels by the impact .. an obvious red card, but chicken referee Tierney made it a yellow .. why, if referees can be overruled when it comes to allowing/disallowing a goal can they not be overruled when they either make a mistake or, more likely, bottle out when a blatant piece of thuggery is not punished severely enough
Referees need to be miked up as in both rugby codes or at the very least the fans need to be told why the VAR team has made its decision. The current 'compromise' (it seems to me) is just not fit for purpose. Also, as has been mentioned elsewhere, VAR allows linesmen (asst refs lol) to abrogate their responsibility for flagging offside .. 'if I've made a fuck up or am undecided, VAR will get it right' .. not good enough
We are in the reptillian age with this stuff right now. As a result of VAR I do think the rules with offisides need to be updated ie, should someone really be given offside if its a boot or a hand thats off? Ultimately I think VAR will be essential, but itll take 5-10 years before it becomes as effiecient as it is in rugby or cricket.
OK, it removes the spontaneity of the human refereeing element, but lets face it, do we really want things like Maradona's hand of god, or Lampards ghost goal against Germany to still happen going forward? Do we look back on those as being from that innocent/charming/fun time before VAR?
Yes. Anyway, thé hand of god is now a part of football folklore. Maybe deleting it from history would bé less fun. Still wish i'd had a go at thé bastard when i had my only chance though.
Every time VAR gives another marginal offside, the wail of frustration is the same. A blurry freeze-frame, an imprecise line, and an attacker is somehow judged offside when we all know that he is level. Raheem Sterling against West Ham United, Son Heung-min against Leicester City and Ajax’s Quincy Promes against Chelsea.
It happens almost every week now, and is tempting to say the offside law has been broken by VAR. That it needs to be re-written to protect forward players. That this new flurry of offside decisions is holding back the flow of attacking football. That all the gains of the past few years are put at risk by this new technology. And that it is time to fight back.
But the facts speak differently. Offsides are at a historic low, and are getting lower. Maybe that is why they are so frustrating now when they do happen, because we are not used to that flag going up any more. It feels more like an arbitrary imposition than it ever used to.
Just look at the numbers. Back in 1997-98 there were 7.8 offsides per Premier League game, according to Opta. In 2005-06 that dropped to 6.3, in 2013-14 to 4.2. Last year it was as low as 3.8. And this year, if you felt there was a VAR spike, you were wrong. It has dropped again to 3.65.
Where the Premier League leads, the lower divisions follow. In the Championship they have dropped from 4.7 in 2013-14 to 3.1 last year. In League One from 4.6 in 2013-14 to 3.5 this year. In League Two from 4.7 in 2013-14 to 3.6 this year.
And this is not just an English story. The 1986 World Cup had 7.6 offsides per game, 1990 had 8.5, and 2018, the first VAR World Cup, just 2.7. Draw up a list of the most offside men at any given World Cup and the only two from this century are El Hadji Diouf with 18 at 2002 and Thierry Henry with a heroic 19 from 2006. Everyone else is from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
Those years were the golden age of offside, not that anyone would have called it that at the time. But now the laws have changed, and so has the game. It is more organised, more technical, with less of the risky ambition that sees the flag go up. For a new generation of fans, offside is no longer a feature of the game, but a bug.
To be offside you have to run in behind. Yes, you can get offsides for laziness, for a player who fails to get back, but more often than not it is for the player who takes a risk. Everyone has in their mind a picture of a classic offside: the forward runs too soon, the defenders hold their position, and when the pass comes, the linesman’s flag soon follows. It is one of the most familiar sequences in the game, at least to anyone who grew up watching football in the 20th century. But modern football has not turned out like that. That run — anticipating, gambling, risking the flag, hoping for a goal — is fading out of the game.
Just ask someone who built a career on that movement.
Darren Bent spanned two eras. He grew up in the early 2000s playing for Ipswich Town in a 4-4-2 partnering Shefki Kuqi, a classic old-fashioned “big man-little man” pair, briefly playing in a two at Charlton, before eventually becoming a lone striker at Tottenham, Sunderland and Aston Villa. He was a master of that run into the space behind the defence, waiting for the through ball to come. And Bent points out with some sadness that strikers no longer do that.
“People don’t do that as much anymore, running in behind,” Bent tells The Athletic. “Everything is to feet, feet, feet. The only one I can think of, who will get in behind, who is brilliant at doing it, is Jamie Vardy. That’s why he has scored so many goals. Because defences aren’t used to doing it, because he’s a dying breed. Offsides have come down a lot, because people don’t do it now. It’s become unfashionable, but it’s so effective because defenders don’t really expect it.”
“Vardy’s own midfielders, James Maddison, Youri Tielemans, they don’t even have to look, the ball will just come to them, they will just hook it in behind, and because Vardy knows it’s coming, it is impossible to mark him. And because Vardy is so quick, they can’t catch him. I played with Danny Murphy at Charlton, he was unbelievable at (the through balls). Back then, defenders knew it was coming, they probably watched tapes and said ‘I know he likes to run in behind’. So they knew it was coming. But if the pass is right, and the timing’s right, it’s impossible.”
If you draw up a list of the most offside players in Premier League history, Bent would be near the top. From 2006-07, the earliest time for when this specific data is available, he has been offside the third most in the league, with 276, behind only Jermain Defoe (314) and Emmanuel Adebayor (328). Bent was offside 53 times for Charlton in 2006-07, 58 times for Tottenham in 2009-10, and then 67 times for Sunderland in 2010-11. (Only Marlon King’s 68 offsides for Hull City and Middlesbrough in 2008-09 is higher.)
But to speak to Bent about this is to learn that being offside is not a failure, it is just the price you pay for the gambles that do come off. “Someone who runs in behind, as much as I used to do, you’re going to get caught offside a lot. Because you’re always running that risk, you’re always treading the line. But you’re banking that you’re going to get one right, two right a game, and you’re going to get a couple of goals from it,” he says.
Bent explains that the key, as well as bending and timing your runs, is to put the external frustration or criticism out of your head. To keep playing your dangerous game even when people on your side want you to slow down.
“I knew that other team-mates would get frustrated with it sometimes, fans would get frustrated, but I always had in my head, ‘you know what, I get they’re frustrated I’ve run offside, I’m giving them free-kicks.’ But I always used to say to myself: I know full well, at some stage, the ball’s going to come, and I’m going to get it right and put it in the back of the net,” he says.
No-one who watches modern football would say that pace has gone out of the game. Players are quicker and more athletic than ever. But now the pace comes from different places. Teams do not hit that same early ball over the top for a centre-forward to chase. Instead, they are more likely to play a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1, and have a No 9 who comes short and wants the ball into his feet. It is very different from the 4-4-2 traditions of the English game.
“Obviously these new coaches have come over, and fair enough it works, it’s brilliant,” says Bent. “A lot of these coaches want the No 9 to build now. Look at Roberto Firmino, comes to feet, really nice touches, plays with his back to goal really well. Aguero plays with his back to goal. Even Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who has got that blistering pace, he will get in behind, but he tends to come to feet a lot.”
So in modern football the pace does not tend to come from a striker gambling in behind the centre-backs. “A lot of the time that’s the key to it,” says one Premier League coach. “The 9 might be coming shorter, and the runs in behind come from wide areas.”
Raheem Sterling, Son Heung-min, Dan James, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah are the best examples but most Premier League teams now have wide players who run in behind from deep. And the men who are being caught offside — far less often than their equivalents 10 years ago — are still centre-forwards, even slow ones. The most offside men in the league last season were Chris Wood, Glenn Murray, Vardy, Gerard Deuolofeu, Aleksandar Mitrovic and Raul Jimenez.
Modern football is leaving offside behind, and nothing proves this point better than Burnley. Sean Dyche’s team are an old-fashioned throwback in how they play: physical, direct, 4-4-2. They are traditionalists in a game that is evolving faster than ever. You could call them anachronistic or even counter-cultural. “They will hit a channel,” says Matt Upson. “They’ll win it in midfield and flip it down the sides for one of them to get after.”
Traditionally you would expect the best teams to be offside the most, because they are always attacking, but the most offside team in the league last season was Burnley (106). The season before they were second-most, with 100. The season before that, back on top with 101. That is what happens when you play 20th-century football in the 21st century.
So it should be no surprise that Wood — an old-fashioned English-style centre-forward, even if he is from New Zealand — has been the most offside man in the Premier League this season. Just as he was last season as well, 53 times, well ahead of second-placed Glenn Murray (38). He leads the line, runs the channels, tries to get in behind. He is very good at it. But Roberto Firmino he is not.
As teams change how they attack, so do teams change how they defend. In the glory days of offside, the ball would zip from one end of the pitch to the other. Back fours would step up in unison when their team won the ball, trying to turn the opposition. And when the ball came back the other way, they would hope the forward runners would be caught offside.
That offside trap that we all remember was a necessary protection against the impatience of the game. “I remember back to watching and playing football in the 1990s,” says Upson. “A lot of the time you would win a tackle and your first pass would be over the top. You’d have centre-forwards that would play channels, strike partnerships with a big man and little man. You’d play forward a lot earlier and more often. Teams don’t play as many longer passes as what I grew up playing.”
Being able to turn opponents, and being ready for them when they tried to turn you, was the most important thing. “I remember in the youth team at Luton, there was so much emphasis on turning teams,” Upson remembers. “Managers weren’t as worried about keeping possession. They’d rather get that territory, turn a team, win a throw-in in their final third. The amount of times you’d have to run back as a defender, clear the ball into the stands and regroup.
“Teams liked to get up the pitch in the 1990s. Defenders liked to get on the front foot, win the aerial challenge, step in front and scrap it out nearer the halfway line, rather than sit on the edge of their box.”
This was true at the very top of the game too. Being well-organised and able to push up in unison was the best defensive tactic. It worked for Arrigo Sacchi’s AC Milan, masters of the old offside trap. Their meticulous organisation, allied with brilliant individual quality, allowed them to set new standards in the game, including a famous triumph over Barcelona in the 1994 Champions League final.
“Obviously you had the great Arsenal example of that too, they were deemed as the most organised, well-marshalled defence on the planet,” says Upson. “Arsenal and AC Milan are the two defences that really stood out at the time for how they would play offside.”
But defences cannot play that way any more. The 2005 law change redefined what it meant to be “interfering with play” in an offside position, namely that a player either had to touch the ball, or represent a “potential for physical contact” with a defender. And by narrowly re-defining interference like this, the law opened up a huge field of potential activity in offside positions. Players could freely run into offside positions and not receive the ball, only to be legally passed the ball by an onside team-mate in the next phase. Suddenly the offside line was no guarantee for a defence any more. Attackers could break it and still hurt them.
So defences had to think differently. If you can now be hurt by attackers behind you, it might be safer to keep them in front of you instead. Bent remembers how the best defence he played against — Manchester United in the late 2000s — dropped off to let him have the ball in front of him instead. Knowing that it would neuter his pace in behind.
“Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand, they were extremely tough to get in behind,” Bent recalls. “They knew how I played. So they dropped sometimes, that’s where defenders were clever. Rio used to bank on me going to feet, because I’m not going to hurt them there, I’m not a player who’s going to get the ball to feet, turn, beat two of them, run through and score. Even if they gave me that extra space to feet, four or five yards, to pass it backwards or sideways, they knew I wasn’t going to hurt them playing that way.”
Defences have become more flexible, and more willing to drop deep when they have to. “The Premier League has become very tactical with lots of teams playing in low and medium blocks when out of possession,” says one Premier League assistant manager. “I think now our Premier League is more cosmopolitan than at any other time, with both players and coaches, they think and see the game in a different way.”
“Teams aren’t really looking to play an offside trap game as they used to in the 1990s,” says another Premier League coach. “It seems to have become almost redundant in the Premier League. It seems to be one team sitting off and the other team countering.”
And that, more than anything else, explains the decline in offside. Football has changed faster in the last 20 or even 10 years than anyone has realised. The old end-to-end game, of turning teams, getting in behind, and trying to catch them offside, is dying at the top level. There are two dominant modes now: possession and counter-attack.
“The game has become so much more tactical,” says the Premier League coach. “Rather than it being an end-to-end game of football, it’s usually one team dominating possession and one looking to hit on the counter-attack, that’s a lot more common than it used to be. Possession is not turned over between teams as much as it used to be.”
As recently as the mid-2000s, it was unheard of for any Premier League team to have at least 70 per cent of possession in a game. It never happened in 2003-04, and there were just single-figure incidences in 2004-05, 2006-07, then 11 in 2007-08, then 17, and then back to single figures in 2009-10 and 2010-11, according to Opta.
But everything gets monopolised in the end, and possession is no different. From 2011-12 every season has had double figures of games with 70 per cent possession for one side, with 20 that year, and a new high of 24 in 2014-15. From there it has gone even higher, 36 in 2016-17 and then a huge spike to 63 in 2017-18 and 67 in 2018-19, a whole 17 per cent of the 380 games played. Premier League football, more than ever before, is played by one team in the half of the other.
This kills offside in two ways. The attacking team, camped in the opposition half, simply will not have the space to be offside. The opposition defence will likely drop so far back that there is no room to run into. Attacking becomes a game of patience and intricacy, trying to find a way to pick the lock, rather than getting the ball forward quickly and hoping for the best. The very best teams are synchronised now in a way that is wholly unprecedented, each one a planned masterpiece of combinations and timing. You cannot just step up to catch them out.
The counter-attack is more important than ever, but teams that break from deep are immune from offside too. As everyone knows, you cannot be offside in your own half. So the further back you start from, the less likely you are to be caught out. The three least-offside teams in last year’s Premier League were Bournemouth (57 times), Newcastle United (59) and Southampton (61), all three in the bottom seven ranked teams by possession.
But then how else are the lesser teams in the Premier League meant to survive?
The reason that teams defend deeper than before is because it is often the only way to survive. The dominant story of modern football — and this is truer in the Premier League than anywhere else — is financial stratification. In the 2017-18 season Manchester United turned over £590million and Manchester City £500m, West Bromwich Albion and Huddersfield Town brought in £125m each. These teams are not meaningfully competing with each other any more, but are riding on different carriages of the same train.
The end of fair competition means the end of even games. Because how can anyone go toe-to-toe with an opponent so much stronger than them? Why would you come out and attack a side who can blow you away? You need to be clever and think differently. To try to throw spanners in the opposition’s dominance while exploiting any crack or opening that they might show. The only response to financial equality is to sit deep and play on the break, football’s own form of asymmetrical warfare.
The offside law will always be one of the principal organising forces in football. But offside decisions are part of a messy, unplanned, back-and-forth but ultimately even and fair game. As football becomes more divided, more predictable and more precise, with each team in its appointed role, that old gambler’s run and offside flag will be two more victims of its unstoppable progress.
VAR was needed in football to stop the 3 yard off-side goal being given or the 1 yard on-side goal being disallowed.
The problem is Time; no issue in Rugby where it's a game of fits and starts But the cadence of a football match is spoilt by a two minute discussion between the ref and the VAR. In Rugby you can hear the discussion and see the evidence and adds to the game in my opinion having TMO.
VAR is having more teething problems than a baby on the shoulder of a parent in the middle of the night.
When VAR was first suggested there were people who said that it would ruin the game by taking the discussion out the game on contentious decisions. I bet they must love VAR! FWIW, I was a fan of VAR, it was used very well in the world Cup and was a success however the way it has evolved has diluted its potential. So I’m on the fence. Re celebrating a goal, I really don’t get how it’s a problem... a goal is scored so celebrate, if it’s referred to VAR and it’s ruled out at its no different to a Lino raising his flag for an infringement in the pre VAR days, if it’s deffo given we get to celebrate twice! Happy days!
Just saw the Liverpool 'goal' which was disallowed offside. As some have pointed out, how can a player seek advantage with his hand/arm as it's the one part of the body you can't score from. Bloody VAR confirmation again but, more worryingly the lino had flagged for the offside. It appears the linos are starting to go with giving the benefit of the doubt to the defender probably because they are fed up at being over-ruled by the VAR.
When VAR was first suggested there were people who said that it would ruin the game by taking the discussion out the game on contentious decisions. I bet they must love VAR! FWIW, I was a fan of VAR, it was used very well in the world Cup and was a success however the way it has evolved has diluted its potential. So I’m on the fence. Re celebrating a goal, I really don’t get how it’s a problem... a goal is scored so celebrate, if it’s referred to VAR and it’s ruled out at its no different to a Lino raising his flag for an infringement in the pre VAR days, if it’s deffo given we get to celebrate twice! Happy days!
Sorry old bean, a glance at the lino when there was doubt, no flag = celebration. A two minute wait to see if there was a handball on the half way line five passes before = moment is gone. It is the effect on the players too as I have said before.
Case in point Lingard's "goal" against the Netherlands in the Nations League Semi. A "winning" goal in the 83rd minute, Dutch heads are down, England are on top. Not just the "moment" of joy, but the full celebration and lining up for the kick off minutes later, and VAR says "no goal". You cannot tell me that does not have a huge psychological effect on everyone involved. Spotting a linesman with his flag up as you wheel away to celebrate is nothing like that.
@Talal same applies - players don't go mental. And if the crowd do (which I am not denying) they need to pay better attention ...
Now I've just seen the Sheffield Utd disallowed goal against Spurs. OMG!
Swarbrick is claiming that with VAR the pixels are clearer so whilst it looks debatable on the TV pictures, it isnt when they're looking at it themselves
The human element involved in the VAR is making a Horlick of the technology. Do we just trust that the ball being played for an offside is at the exact Millisecond that we see the picture with the attacking player ?
I'm convinced that if a ball hits your armpit its a handball. The clue is in the name !
Common sense with VAR and it's the greatest thing since sliced bread; the way it's being used at the moment in the Premier is like mouldy old dough.
If the game is going to persist with VAR I would like to see the Law changed to the extent that there has to be daylight between the attacker and the defender for it be offside i.e. if any part of the body is level then the attacker is deemed onside. VAR decisions would, generally speaking, be far clearer and the game would be rewarding, rather than penalising, an attacker.
The Law was changed before as level used to be offside so why not go that one step further?
FIFA is now actively looking at bringing this in. Will create less dubious decisions and create more chance/goals in my opinion which has to be a good thing.
I think we've all been duped. VAR is about the big boys saying this is our game, not yours. I'd be amazed if someone wasn't already planning this as a future revenue stream. We already see referees with EA Sports logos, I bet it's not very long before the VAR screens are all logoed up.
With VAR there will be an end to the scenes like at QPR for the Sarr equaliser- and come to that, same goes for Bauer’s last kick of the ball at Wembley. Everybody has to wait 5 minutes before they can celebrate. It will kill the atmo that we currently experience.
We always moan about poor refs so if VAR helps the ref out it must be a good thing.Refs are too slow and not fit enough for the modern game
I'll take this one on guys...
"We always moan about poor refs..." - But we don't moan about the good ones, so improve the standard of refereeing.
"...if VAR helps the ref out..." - It doesn't, it undermines him/her.
"... it must be a good thing..." - It's not - read the pages of evidence above.
"Refs are too slow and not fit enough for the modern game." - No idea what this has to do with VAR? Very insulting to referees, they have to keep up a high standard of fitness or they are dropped. Even if the claim is true, then just up the fitness requirements - VAR isn't needed for that.
Has it really solved the problems it was intended to solve ? Not for me it hasn’t. Just leave the referees alone. Yes it’s a tough job but it’s done with honesty and integrity which is all anyone can ask for. Football is the best and most watched sport on the planet. Don’t mess with it.
Comments
The mud on the end of the attacker's boot is 1mm ahead of the defender - offside, no goal
Attacker wrestled to the floor or blatant handball by a defender - no penalty
Ball hits defender's hand accidentally, making no difference to play - no penalty (correctly)
Ball hits attacker's hand accidentally, making no difference to play - handball, no goal
OK, it removes the spontaneity of the human refereeing element, but lets face it, do we really want things like Maradona's hand of god, or Lampards ghost goal against Germany to still happen going forward? Do we look back on those as being from that innocent/charming/fun time before VAR?
Don't agree with your second paragraph though, Fred.
The Leicester disallowed goal, fans going wild, players celebrating then the big screen tells us that VAR is in operation .. goal disallowed .. no inkling, no information as to why, the fans are left totally in the dark. Why if TV viewers can see the whole episode, why why are spectators at the game not allowed the same access and not even an announcement over the pa system ?. .. very similar situation with the Spurs disallowed goal, all very unsatisfactory although of course when the goals were disallowed, huge cheers from the relevant fans.
Also, during the game, Sissoko lost the ball in midfield (bad control) and followed through studs up on Maddison, the best player on the field, who was thrown head over heels by the impact .. an obvious red card, but chicken referee Tierney made it a yellow .. why, if referees can be overruled when it comes to allowing/disallowing a goal can they not be overruled when they either make a mistake or, more likely, bottle out when a blatant piece of thuggery is not punished severely enough
Referees need to be miked up as in both rugby codes or at the very least the fans need to be told why the VAR team has made its decision. The current 'compromise' (it seems to me) is just not fit for purpose. Also, as has been mentioned elsewhere, VAR allows linesmen (asst refs lol) to abrogate their responsibility for flagging offside .. 'if I've made a fuck up or am undecided, VAR will get it right' .. not good enough
Still wish i'd had a go at thé bastard when i had my only chance though.
From the Athletic, on the issue of offside
Every time VAR gives another marginal offside, the wail of frustration is the same. A blurry freeze-frame, an imprecise line, and an attacker is somehow judged offside when we all know that he is level. Raheem Sterling against West Ham United, Son Heung-min against Leicester City and Ajax’s Quincy Promes against Chelsea.
It happens almost every week now, and is tempting to say the offside law has been broken by VAR. That it needs to be re-written to protect forward players. That this new flurry of offside decisions is holding back the flow of attacking football. That all the gains of the past few years are put at risk by this new technology. And that it is time to fight back.
But the facts speak differently. Offsides are at a historic low, and are getting lower. Maybe that is why they are so frustrating now when they do happen, because we are not used to that flag going up any more. It feels more like an arbitrary imposition than it ever used to.
Just look at the numbers. Back in 1997-98 there were 7.8 offsides per Premier League game, according to Opta. In 2005-06 that dropped to 6.3, in 2013-14 to 4.2. Last year it was as low as 3.8. And this year, if you felt there was a VAR spike, you were wrong. It has dropped again to 3.65.
Where the Premier League leads, the lower divisions follow. In the Championship they have dropped from 4.7 in 2013-14 to 3.1 last year. In League One from 4.6 in 2013-14 to 3.5 this year. In League Two from 4.7 in 2013-14 to 3.6 this year.
And this is not just an English story. The 1986 World Cup had 7.6 offsides per game, 1990 had 8.5, and 2018, the first VAR World Cup, just 2.7. Draw up a list of the most offside men at any given World Cup and the only two from this century are El Hadji Diouf with 18 at 2002 and Thierry Henry with a heroic 19 from 2006. Everyone else is from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
Those years were the golden age of offside, not that anyone would have called it that at the time. But now the laws have changed, and so has the game. It is more organised, more technical, with less of the risky ambition that sees the flag go up. For a new generation of fans, offside is no longer a feature of the game, but a bug.
To be offside you have to run in behind. Yes, you can get offsides for laziness, for a player who fails to get back, but more often than not it is for the player who takes a risk. Everyone has in their mind a picture of a classic offside: the forward runs too soon, the defenders hold their position, and when the pass comes, the linesman’s flag soon follows. It is one of the most familiar sequences in the game, at least to anyone who grew up watching football in the 20th century. But modern football has not turned out like that. That run — anticipating, gambling, risking the flag, hoping for a goal — is fading out of the game.
Just ask someone who built a career on that movement.
Darren Bent spanned two eras. He grew up in the early 2000s playing for Ipswich Town in a 4-4-2 partnering Shefki Kuqi, a classic old-fashioned “big man-little man” pair, briefly playing in a two at Charlton, before eventually becoming a lone striker at Tottenham, Sunderland and Aston Villa. He was a master of that run into the space behind the defence, waiting for the through ball to come. And Bent points out with some sadness that strikers no longer do that.
“People don’t do that as much anymore, running in behind,” Bent tells The Athletic. “Everything is to feet, feet, feet. The only one I can think of, who will get in behind, who is brilliant at doing it, is Jamie Vardy. That’s why he has scored so many goals. Because defences aren’t used to doing it, because he’s a dying breed. Offsides have come down a lot, because people don’t do it now. It’s become unfashionable, but it’s so effective because defenders don’t really expect it.”
“Vardy’s own midfielders, James Maddison, Youri Tielemans, they don’t even have to look, the ball will just come to them, they will just hook it in behind, and because Vardy knows it’s coming, it is impossible to mark him. And because Vardy is so quick, they can’t catch him. I played with Danny Murphy at Charlton, he was unbelievable at (the through balls). Back then, defenders knew it was coming, they probably watched tapes and said ‘I know he likes to run in behind’. So they knew it was coming. But if the pass is right, and the timing’s right, it’s impossible.”
If you draw up a list of the most offside players in Premier League history, Bent would be near the top. From 2006-07, the earliest time for when this specific data is available, he has been offside the third most in the league, with 276, behind only Jermain Defoe (314) and Emmanuel Adebayor (328). Bent was offside 53 times for Charlton in 2006-07, 58 times for Tottenham in 2009-10, and then 67 times for Sunderland in 2010-11. (Only Marlon King’s 68 offsides for Hull City and Middlesbrough in 2008-09 is higher.)
But to speak to Bent about this is to learn that being offside is not a failure, it is just the price you pay for the gambles that do come off. “Someone who runs in behind, as much as I used to do, you’re going to get caught offside a lot. Because you’re always running that risk, you’re always treading the line. But you’re banking that you’re going to get one right, two right a game, and you’re going to get a couple of goals from it,” he says.
Bent explains that the key, as well as bending and timing your runs, is to put the external frustration or criticism out of your head. To keep playing your dangerous game even when people on your side want you to slow down.
“I knew that other team-mates would get frustrated with it sometimes, fans would get frustrated, but I always had in my head, ‘you know what, I get they’re frustrated I’ve run offside, I’m giving them free-kicks.’ But I always used to say to myself: I know full well, at some stage, the ball’s going to come, and I’m going to get it right and put it in the back of the net,” he says.
No-one who watches modern football would say that pace has gone out of the game. Players are quicker and more athletic than ever. But now the pace comes from different places. Teams do not hit that same early ball over the top for a centre-forward to chase. Instead, they are more likely to play a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1, and have a No 9 who comes short and wants the ball into his feet. It is very different from the 4-4-2 traditions of the English game.
“Obviously these new coaches have come over, and fair enough it works, it’s brilliant,” says Bent. “A lot of these coaches want the No 9 to build now. Look at Roberto Firmino, comes to feet, really nice touches, plays with his back to goal really well. Aguero plays with his back to goal. Even Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who has got that blistering pace, he will get in behind, but he tends to come to feet a lot.”
So in modern football the pace does not tend to come from a striker gambling in behind the centre-backs. “A lot of the time that’s the key to it,” says one Premier League coach. “The 9 might be coming shorter, and the runs in behind come from wide areas.”
Raheem Sterling, Son Heung-min, Dan James, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah are the best examples but most Premier League teams now have wide players who run in behind from deep. And the men who are being caught offside — far less often than their equivalents 10 years ago — are still centre-forwards, even slow ones. The most offside men in the league last season were Chris Wood, Glenn Murray, Vardy, Gerard Deuolofeu, Aleksandar Mitrovic and Raul Jimenez.
Modern football is leaving offside behind, and nothing proves this point better than Burnley. Sean Dyche’s team are an old-fashioned throwback in how they play: physical, direct, 4-4-2. They are traditionalists in a game that is evolving faster than ever. You could call them anachronistic or even counter-cultural. “They will hit a channel,” says Matt Upson. “They’ll win it in midfield and flip it down the sides for one of them to get after.”
Traditionally you would expect the best teams to be offside the most, because they are always attacking, but the most offside team in the league last season was Burnley (106). The season before they were second-most, with 100. The season before that, back on top with 101. That is what happens when you play 20th-century football in the 21st century.
So it should be no surprise that Wood — an old-fashioned English-style centre-forward, even if he is from New Zealand — has been the most offside man in the Premier League this season. Just as he was last season as well, 53 times, well ahead of second-placed Glenn Murray (38). He leads the line, runs the channels, tries to get in behind. He is very good at it. But Roberto Firmino he is not.
As teams change how they attack, so do teams change how they defend. In the glory days of offside, the ball would zip from one end of the pitch to the other. Back fours would step up in unison when their team won the ball, trying to turn the opposition. And when the ball came back the other way, they would hope the forward runners would be caught offside.
That offside trap that we all remember was a necessary protection against the impatience of the game. “I remember back to watching and playing football in the 1990s,” says Upson. “A lot of the time you would win a tackle and your first pass would be over the top. You’d have centre-forwards that would play channels, strike partnerships with a big man and little man. You’d play forward a lot earlier and more often. Teams don’t play as many longer passes as what I grew up playing.”
Being able to turn opponents, and being ready for them when they tried to turn you, was the most important thing. “I remember in the youth team at Luton, there was so much emphasis on turning teams,” Upson remembers. “Managers weren’t as worried about keeping possession. They’d rather get that territory, turn a team, win a throw-in in their final third. The amount of times you’d have to run back as a defender, clear the ball into the stands and regroup.
“Teams liked to get up the pitch in the 1990s. Defenders liked to get on the front foot, win the aerial challenge, step in front and scrap it out nearer the halfway line, rather than sit on the edge of their box.”
This was true at the very top of the game too. Being well-organised and able to push up in unison was the best defensive tactic. It worked for Arrigo Sacchi’s AC Milan, masters of the old offside trap. Their meticulous organisation, allied with brilliant individual quality, allowed them to set new standards in the game, including a famous triumph over Barcelona in the 1994 Champions League final.
“Obviously you had the great Arsenal example of that too, they were deemed as the most organised, well-marshalled defence on the planet,” says Upson. “Arsenal and AC Milan are the two defences that really stood out at the time for how they would play offside.”
But defences cannot play that way any more. The 2005 law change redefined what it meant to be “interfering with play” in an offside position, namely that a player either had to touch the ball, or represent a “potential for physical contact” with a defender. And by narrowly re-defining interference like this, the law opened up a huge field of potential activity in offside positions. Players could freely run into offside positions and not receive the ball, only to be legally passed the ball by an onside team-mate in the next phase. Suddenly the offside line was no guarantee for a defence any more. Attackers could break it and still hurt them.
So defences had to think differently. If you can now be hurt by attackers behind you, it might be safer to keep them in front of you instead. Bent remembers how the best defence he played against — Manchester United in the late 2000s — dropped off to let him have the ball in front of him instead. Knowing that it would neuter his pace in behind.
“Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand, they were extremely tough to get in behind,” Bent recalls. “They knew how I played. So they dropped sometimes, that’s where defenders were clever. Rio used to bank on me going to feet, because I’m not going to hurt them there, I’m not a player who’s going to get the ball to feet, turn, beat two of them, run through and score. Even if they gave me that extra space to feet, four or five yards, to pass it backwards or sideways, they knew I wasn’t going to hurt them playing that way.”
Defences have become more flexible, and more willing to drop deep when they have to. “The Premier League has become very tactical with lots of teams playing in low and medium blocks when out of possession,” says one Premier League assistant manager. “I think now our Premier League is more cosmopolitan than at any other time, with both players and coaches, they think and see the game in a different way.”
“Teams aren’t really looking to play an offside trap game as they used to in the 1990s,” says another Premier League coach. “It seems to have become almost redundant in the Premier League. It seems to be one team sitting off and the other team countering.”
And that, more than anything else, explains the decline in offside. Football has changed faster in the last 20 or even 10 years than anyone has realised. The old end-to-end game, of turning teams, getting in behind, and trying to catch them offside, is dying at the top level. There are two dominant modes now: possession and counter-attack.
“The game has become so much more tactical,” says the Premier League coach. “Rather than it being an end-to-end game of football, it’s usually one team dominating possession and one looking to hit on the counter-attack, that’s a lot more common than it used to be. Possession is not turned over between teams as much as it used to be.”
As recently as the mid-2000s, it was unheard of for any Premier League team to have at least 70 per cent of possession in a game. It never happened in 2003-04, and there were just single-figure incidences in 2004-05, 2006-07, then 11 in 2007-08, then 17, and then back to single figures in 2009-10 and 2010-11, according to Opta.
But everything gets monopolised in the end, and possession is no different. From 2011-12 every season has had double figures of games with 70 per cent possession for one side, with 20 that year, and a new high of 24 in 2014-15. From there it has gone even higher, 36 in 2016-17 and then a huge spike to 63 in 2017-18 and 67 in 2018-19, a whole 17 per cent of the 380 games played. Premier League football, more than ever before, is played by one team in the half of the other.
This kills offside in two ways. The attacking team, camped in the opposition half, simply will not have the space to be offside. The opposition defence will likely drop so far back that there is no room to run into. Attacking becomes a game of patience and intricacy, trying to find a way to pick the lock, rather than getting the ball forward quickly and hoping for the best. The very best teams are synchronised now in a way that is wholly unprecedented, each one a planned masterpiece of combinations and timing. You cannot just step up to catch them out.
The counter-attack is more important than ever, but teams that break from deep are immune from offside too. As everyone knows, you cannot be offside in your own half. So the further back you start from, the less likely you are to be caught out. The three least-offside teams in last year’s Premier League were Bournemouth (57 times), Newcastle United (59) and Southampton (61), all three in the bottom seven ranked teams by possession.
But then how else are the lesser teams in the Premier League meant to survive?
The reason that teams defend deeper than before is because it is often the only way to survive. The dominant story of modern football — and this is truer in the Premier League than anywhere else — is financial stratification. In the 2017-18 season Manchester United turned over £590million and Manchester City £500m, West Bromwich Albion and Huddersfield Town brought in £125m each. These teams are not meaningfully competing with each other any more, but are riding on different carriages of the same train.
The end of fair competition means the end of even games. Because how can anyone go toe-to-toe with an opponent so much stronger than them? Why would you come out and attack a side who can blow you away? You need to be clever and think differently. To try to throw spanners in the opposition’s dominance while exploiting any crack or opening that they might show. The only response to financial equality is to sit deep and play on the break, football’s own form of asymmetrical warfare.
The offside law will always be one of the principal organising forces in football. But offside decisions are part of a messy, unplanned, back-and-forth but ultimately even and fair game. As football becomes more divided, more predictable and more precise, with each team in its appointed role, that old gambler’s run and offside flag will be two more victims of its unstoppable progress.
The problem is Time; no issue in Rugby where it's a game of fits and starts But the cadence of a football match is spoilt by a two minute discussion between the ref and the VAR. In Rugby you can hear the discussion and see the evidence and adds to the game in my opinion having TMO.
VAR is having more teething problems than a baby on the shoulder of a parent in the middle of the night.
I bet they must love VAR!
FWIW, I was a fan of VAR, it was used very well in the world Cup and was a success however the way it has evolved has diluted its potential. So I’m on the fence.
Re celebrating a goal, I really don’t get how it’s a problem... a goal is scored so celebrate, if it’s referred to VAR and it’s ruled out at its no different to a Lino raising his flag for an infringement in the pre VAR days, if it’s deffo given we get to celebrate twice!
Happy days!
Case in point Lingard's "goal" against the Netherlands in the Nations League Semi. A "winning" goal in the 83rd minute, Dutch heads are down, England are on top. Not just the "moment" of joy, but the full celebration and lining up for the kick off minutes later, and VAR says "no goal". You cannot tell me that does not have a huge psychological effect on everyone involved. Spotting a linesman with his flag up as you wheel away to celebrate is nothing like that.
@Talal same applies - players don't go mental. And if the crowd do (which I am not denying) they need to pay better attention ...
Do we just trust that the ball being played for an offside is at the exact Millisecond that we see the picture with the attacking player ?
I'm convinced that if a ball hits your armpit its a handball. The clue is in the name !
Common sense with VAR and it's the greatest thing since sliced bread; the way it's being used at the moment in the Premier is like mouldy old dough.
Everybody has to wait 5 minutes before they can celebrate. It will kill the atmo that we currently experience.
"We always moan about poor refs..." - But we don't moan about the good ones, so improve the standard of refereeing.
"...if VAR helps the ref out..." - It doesn't, it undermines him/her.
"... it must be a good thing..." - It's not - read the pages of evidence above.
"Refs are too slow and not fit enough for the modern game." - No idea what this has to do with VAR? Very insulting to referees, they have to keep up a high standard of fitness or they are dropped. Even if the claim is true, then just up the fitness requirements - VAR isn't needed for that.
Other than that every word was spot on.
Happy New Year.