Thanks for sharing. I have read Johnson’s VAR Review on many occasions and he tends to take the same line as Webb and Gallagher in manufacturing whatever justification is necessary to legitimise a decision after the fact.
And, I have to say, he has outdone himself there. That is some of the most convoluted waffling I have read in some time. His case for why the Endo and Varane ‘offside blocking’ incidents are very different—and so rightly saw different decisions—is somehow both overly complex and stupidly simplistic (which is a new achievement).
He completely ignores the timing of the blocking relative to the play of the cross (it happened early, not late, in the Varane sequence) and the fact that Felipe then functionally blocked of his other teammates, inflates the significance of “floating” versus “driven” crosses in impacting set piece play (specifically in these scenarios), implies referees (VAR) need to analyse team tactics to inform their decisions (“were the defending team playing a low block or a high line, let’s dissect!”), and manages to make high certainty predictions as to which of Colwill and Felipe would have more of an unobstructed run to the ball if there hadn’t been a player intentionally standing offside to block defenders (even whilst ignoring factors that would impact such a prediction).
Ironically, it is exactly the explanation I would have anticipated from Webb.
www.espn.com