I can't stand VAR and would jump for joy if the FA got rid of it next season. But I think a lot of people blaming VAR for Coventry's goal being chalked off need to think about the same scenario happening in a world where VAR was never invented.
Think of the following scenario: O'Hare plays the pass to Wright, who looks marginally offside in the build-up, so the linesman raises his flag and the chance never even gets created - Torp never puts the ball in the net. In the aftermath, the cameras run it back, the TV companies draw a line up to Wan Bissaka's feet, and establish that Wright was "just about level" and therefore onside.
After the match you'd get people desperately clamouring for VAR, saying we need technology to help referees make tight decisions, that bad refereeing is killing the sport and that people will simply stop watching if refereeing standards don't improve.
In the end, as much as I hate it, I don't think VAR is the problem with Coventry's goal - people just seem to react very fucking badly to losing these days and will always point at VAR as the villain.
Another example is Nottm Forest who were laughing and chuckling when a bad refereeing decision meant they got promoted a few years ago, but are now sending official statements claiming the FA are conspiring against them.
Football fans need to do a lot of thinking about what they actually dislike about Coventry's goal being disallowed - if the exact same thing had happened to United we'd all be laughing our heads off and there would be no VAR debate currently happening on this forum.
This is pretty much my take.
Do I like VAR? No, I think it is possibly one of the worst examples of technology implementation I've seen from a multi-billion dollar industry. It is laughably bad. I have a long list of things that I would change if it were up to me. Either that or, like you, have it summarily dismissed as a failed experiment.
That said, it never ceases to amuse me how hilariously short people's memories are about what life was like before VAR. If I had a penny for every time I heard "the technology is there, why don't they use it?" I would have been able to retire by 25.
Remember the Reading ghost goal? When Kieran Gibbs got sent off? Nani's handball goal v Spurs? Henry v Ireland? People have been having kittens over decisions like this for as long as time immemorial. The one thing you can say is none of the above would have happened in the VAR era.
This Coventry offside is not an example of an obviously incorrect decision, it's an example of a decision people just don't like. I can't blame them for that, I hate it too. But it's not a problem with execution, it's a problem with process. Which are two very different things. And it's United, so that naturally fucks people off even more.
I've said it before, the problem isn't the decision it's the delay. In my opinion (and it is only my opinion), they should have only allowed VAR to get involved in offsides if the technology was capable of enhancing decisions at no detriment to the game. It wasn't and now they've given people a reason to hate it.
It would have been so easy to make the VAR introduction more gradual and measured. First use it for exceptional errors like mistaken identity. Then maybe timekeeping. Then if people think that's worked, just give referees the option to look at a screen to review reds/handballs. Then, when the tech was up to it (it isn't today in its current state) offsides. Instead, they brought it in to do a whole raft of things at once with untested chaotic processes, so much of which is not fit for purpose.
They should have had us begging/complaining that VAR doesn't get involved enough because they are overly cautious, but now the genie is out of the bottle and they've properly fucked it. If they aren't going to get rid of it (because they won't), it now needs a total overhaul.
