FATIGUE IS PLAYING A PART IN THESE VAR HOWLERS

IT HAS been a bad period for VAR and we are starting to see fatigue play a part in mistakes, both from referees and those at Stockley Park. Since the restart there have been so many errors from referees. That has been compounded by the VAR process. I cannot believe Mamadou Sakho’s goal for Palace against Villa yesterday was disallowed for handball by VAR official Jon Moss. It was never handball, it hit his shoulder. Under any law, new or old, the shoulder is not handball. I’m shocked that VAR has this as a clear and obvious error and overturned the goal. How can that be? All of these mistakes have the feel of what we see at Christmas — too many games, too much travelling and poor decisions. Because of Covid-19, officials are no longer being picked up from home and driven to a hotel. They are driving themselves, meeting the rest of the team at a service station, having a sandwich, then following each other to the ground. Most are then driving home afterwards. Normally you would be able to relax and recover in a chauffeur-driven car, or stay in a hotel. Michael Oliver did stay overnight last week after the West Ham-Burnley game but was at Stockley Park the following night, before driving 300 miles home. He was back down for the North London derby yesterday. This cannot be helpful and I can tell a few referees have looked tired and that has shown in their decisions. Saying that, I cannot accept some of the recent VAR mistakes. We saw three on Thursday night that the referee got wrong but were not overturned by VAR — the most blatant when Harry Kane was pushed by Bournemouth’s Joshua King. I don’t know why Oliver did not tell referee Paul Tierney to take a look on the pitchside monitor — he would have given a penalty if he had. VAR is not the final decision — it should be saying: ‘We believe a mistake has been made. Take a look’. But if referees aren’t making that final decision, then they are not getting blamed, are they? So perhaps some are happy to hide behind that. Either way, the process is making too many errors.