PEACE IS FINALLY DESCENDING ON VAR PAVILIONS OF STOCKLEY PARK
CAN we all now forget about turning back time and canning VAR?
Remember the howling? The wailing?
Remember how the game was being sent to hell in a Stockley Park handcart?
VAR will destroy football’s soul. VAR will take the romance out of the game. VAR will stop players celebrating.
VAR will end all fun associated with football. Blah, blah, blah.
Opposing VAR was the Luddites’ World Cup and Olympic Games rolled into one. It was their time to shine.
It sounded like a hysterical reaction to a hugely significant development in the game… and that is because it WAS a hysterical reaction to a hugely significant development in the game.
VAR has not quite become part of the fabric of the elite game, but it is now an established cog in elite football’s wheel.
And if you wanted a reminder of its value, Manchester United versus Arsenal at Old Trafford was Exhibit A.
First things first, Martin Atkinson (below) is, normally, a very good referee. Very good.
But he had a poor game on Thursday. On the Emile Smith
Rowe goal, it looked like Atkinson panicked.
He saw David de Gea down, the ball heading into the net and blew his whistle.
Giving him the benefit of the doubt, you might wonder if Atkinson was merely waiting for VAR to tell him what happened.
Whatever, he had that safety net. He was told the correct decision, the goal was given, no dramas.
Then, when Martin Odegaard rashly brought down Fred, with the score at two apiece, VAR was there to point Atkinson
towards the monitor, towards the penalty spot, towards the right decision, towards a just result.
From what I heard after the game, there were few complaints from those of an Arsenal persuasion, even though I was in a very small minority who thought Atkinson might have thought Fred had initiated the contact for the penalty.
Instead, more and more are simply accepting the process.
I heard David Moyes complaining about a VAR decision in West Ham’s draw with Brighton the other day, but it sounded a little half-hearted.
Rather, it sounded like the complaint of a manager whose team have just gone off the boil over the past three Premier League matches.
Of course, a manager will always be annoyed if a VAR decision goes against his team, but very few now actively rail against it.
Having seen UEFA lead the way at the Euros, its implementation is also getting just a bit slicker.
Marginal offside calls are not taking as long to make and the referrals to the monitors were so obviously needed.
Yes, in a lot of cases, a decision remains the subjective judgement of an observer, whether on the field or in Stockley Park.
But in ALL cases when a blatant mistake has been made, it has been rectified.
Many of us said at the time of its introduction for the 2019/20 Premier League season that we would all just have to get used to VAR and that we all WOULD get used to VAR, eventually.
Well, that time might not quite be here yet… but it is not far away.