How did neither of Foden’s offsides come remotely close to satisfying the criteria, given play was stopped before any opportunity could manifest, as opposed to United’s goal which required play to go on for a considerable time for a goal scoring opportunity to manifest?
It is not an independently verified statistical fact. Prior to VAR officiating accuracy was being reported as 90+%. After VAR, the pre-VAR accuracy was estimated lower for comparison to VAR era accuracy. And that reporting is internal, which is dubious in of itself.
It has to be an immediate goal scoring opportunity i.e. Kev plays a ball through the middle for Erl to run on to on the edge of the box with no defender in sight. If the liner thinks it is a tight call then the flag should stay down. In Foden's case I think both balls (I may be wrong) were sent out wide, some distance from the goal and therefore there wasn't an immediate goal scoring opportunity.
I know the current reported accuracies. The point was the officiating accuracy was reported as much higher prior to VAR (+8-10%), and then was adjusted down after VAR was implemented. This is a pretty common tactic when attempting to prove efficacy of a new system/policy, as it is easy to say part of the new implementation is more accurate reporting that results in previous reporting being shown to be less accurate. It’s actually one of the main tactics for corporate financial reporting (and several forms of fraud).
Both of them would have had Foden in behind the United defender in the box and who is to say a chance couldn’t have come from either (though, one was obviously offside, but we know that doesn’t really matter now)? One was very tight, so why did the flag immediately go up?
... and therein lies the problem.
One observation I made at the time was why did the flag not go up straight away as firstly it wasn't a tight call and secondly the liner couldn't possibly have thought there was an immediate goal scoring opportunity. No idea why the flag didn't go up straight away especially given that the liner concerned is supposedly one of the best in the world.Both of them would have had Foden in behind the United defender in the box and who is to say a chance couldn’t have come from either (though, one was obviously offside, but we know that doesn’t really matter now)? One was very tight, so why did the flag immediately go up?
As far as goal scoring opportunity playing a part, are linesman now doing xG calculations before deciding whether to raise their flag for offside? What is the xG threshold for immediate flag raise versus delayed flag raise? Who set the the threshold? Are they doing it in their heads or is someone confirming it in their ear the moment the potential offside is identified?
And, in the case of the United equaliser, it wasn’t tight, nor was it an immediate goal scoring opportunity (xG from his position when the ball was played forward is slightly higher than 0.00). Rashford was well off from the moment the pass was played, not even in our final third when he was offside, so why was the flag delayed until after Rashford had run 20 yards over the ball and Fernandes swept in to put it in the back of the net?
In fact, at no point was it a particularly great goal scoring opportunity, except that all three of our players were defending a ghost offside player who had possession of the ball. Really, there is no goal scoring opportunity if Rashford is not allowed to run over the ball, as either Akanji or Eddie easily clear it before Fernandes arrives.
Fernandes even shoots from outside and almost dead centre of the box which is a relatively low xG position.
Foden’s position for both of his immediate offside calls would have much higher xG.
Nothing about the officiating during the match makes much sense outside of specific potential frameworks of utter incompetence or outright manipulation.