Referees' Performances | 2025/26

Are we the only team this season to not have some of the most blatant red cards/penalties against us not given but aren't we the only team to have a referee stick to his original on field decision (penalty v wolves) when VAR said he needs to review??
Seriously. VAR is used to manipulate results no fucker will ever convince me otherwise.
 
MillionMilesAway said:
He did. I thought the flaw was that there was no focus on what happened with Trossard/Pablo before the ball was headed - the screen review only showed Trossard standing still, not the earlier pushing which would have had an effect on Pablo.

From what Kavanagh was shown, he was right that there was nothing in it.

I think Rice/Mavrapanos is likely to be irrelevant to the decision as it didn't make a difference to what happened.
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Trossard always has some sneaky job to do at corners, the little rat always charges the keeper or pushes someone into him.
 
Alan Harper's Tash said:


This is a crazy conversation.

How can the ref give a goal kick?
How can VAR not see the bear hug?

He’s only punched the ball in the process of holding and fouling the player.
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It's one of those decisions, and City have been on the shitty end of them- holding, offsides, handballs - where the idiots with the whistle and the VAR screen know what they have seen but haven't the guts to give what the LotG mandate. Too controversial, might end up with a fortnight gardening leave or demotion to the Championship.
 
Alan Harper's Tash said:
Which is fair and why people are still debating it.

I guess it depends on how you define the first foul. Is it holding by players nowhere near the ball or is it the first fouls that directly impacts play?

Then, are there mitigations for how the foul happened, Ie was that player being fouled at the same time to cause the other foul.

Should that be taken into account? The LOTG don’t specify, so it’s down to the subjective decision of the referees involved.
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The Laws of the Game are quite clear in my opinion.

Law 12.

A direct free kick is awarded if a player commits any of the following offences:

- a handball offence (except for the goalkeeper within their penalty area)

- holds an opponent

- impedes an opponent with contact

Furthermore, the laws also contain the following advice to referees:

Referees are reminded to make an early intervention and to deal firmly with holding offences, especially inside the penalty area at corner kicks and free kicks. To deal with these situations:

- the referee must warn any player holding an opponent before the ball is in play

- caution the player if the holding continues before the ball is in play

- award a direct free kick or penalty kick and caution the player if it happens once the ball is in play
 
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Alan Harper's Tash said:
Yeah, accidental isn’t really relevant.

The whole check was strange.
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"He's gone to grab the player, it's a total accident" is one or the most ridiculous phrases in a VAR check ever.
He's basically saying "he's committed a direct freekick foul but he's missed and ended up punching the ball away from the attacker so it was accidental".
Just that short line from the VAR guy has shown that he has no understanding of two of the basic rules in football.
 
Alan Harper's Tash said:


This is a crazy conversation.

How can the ref give a goal kick?
How can VAR not see the bear hug?

He’s only punched the ball in the process of holding and fouling the player.
Click to expand...

This one is up there with one of the worst decisions I've ever seen. Add it to the Palace FA cup handball and Rashford's offside goal case files. Accidental is not even in the rule book for starters. Whoever the VAR is needs sacking
 
Chris in London said:
And that's precisely the problem.

It shouldn't have been left to Kavanagh to decide because his initial decision wasn't clearly and obviously wrong. There was so much going on in the area with that corner that it would have been difficult to say any of the possible decisions he could have made were clearly and obviously wrong.

Howard Webb, however, has by himself changed the goalposts by reducing massively the threshold at which a decision can be said to be a "clear and obvious" error. To give two examples, last Monday Everton scored at a corner at which an Everton player jumped directly into Donnaruma as the corner was in flight. That should have been a free kick, wasn't given, the review of the goal by VAR took about 5 seconds and nothing more was said about it. Then we have the Bournemouth goal, where a Bournemouth player grabbed hold of Donnarumma's arm and held on to him while the corner came in. Again there was a goal, again there was a review that lasted about 5 seconds, again nothing was said. Yet that was a much clearer, and much more obvious foul than the one on Saturday.

If a foul on the goalkeeper that was missed by the referee was a "clear and obvious" error on Saturday, it has been all season. But just find me one other example of a VAR reversal of the on-field decision that a goal should be given for a foul on a keeper at a corner. We all know they have been going on all season.

It was only on Saturday with the title on the line that the bar was suddenly lowered.
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The bigger problem here is that VAR appears to be having too much impact on the game, often forgetting that they're only supposed to intervene when there's a 'clear and obvious' error. Once they send the ref to the monitor screen it's virtually guaranteed he'll change his mind. In fact, of the 83 times the refs have gone to the monitors this season they've changed their mind 81 times. Unbelievable (but true). As such the VAR officials are currently 98% sure that when they call the ref to the monitor screen he's going to agree with their suggestion. I think this is giving too much power to VAR, especially when their purpose it supposedly to 'assist' the referee.
 
Newman Noggs said:
Thought the ref was good tonight. Let play go on and then went back and booked the Palace player for a dirty foul and then booked their player for diving.
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Me too, was surprised.

A few missed fouls and a few soft ones for them but overall pretty good.

Kept on warning Henderson about wasting time instead of booking Henderson for wasting time was my biggest criticism.
 
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