PREM BOSSES ORDER REVIEW
FARCE HAS GONE ON VAR TOO LONG COLEMAN’S A WARRIOR
are seven teams below them in the table.
City are hot favourites to win the title again — but they have dropped points in two of their six games and had to dig very deep to get all three points against Crystal Palace.
Liverpool just don’t look like themselves.
They are playing more as a group of individuals than a team — which is very unlike them under Klopp.
There is no guarantee that they’ll get back on track quickly.
So you can understand why some teams might be thinking this is a season of possibility.
Manchester
Arsenal fall category.
United and into that
Matches between the two used to have a huge amount at stake — but that hasn’t been true for a long time.
Arsenal’s flying start to the season, though, coupled with some positive results from United raised the hype for this fixture to a level we haven’t seen in a while.
To win their first five games — even if most of the fixtures weren’t that testing on paper — was something that Arteta would have dreamed about.
Conceding
Just think how it was a year ago.
Arsenal lost their first three matches, conceding nine goals and scoring none.
There was talk of Arteta’s job being under threat.
No-one is thinking like that now.
Arteta only turned 40 this year and carries himself in a youthful fashion.
That may well help as he has the youngest squad in the Premier League.
Indeed, they’re the youngest by quite a distance.
The average age of the Arsenal players is 25.2, a full year younger than Brentford, the second youngest squad.
In such a physically demanding league where players are expected to cover a huge amount of ground, young legs can be a plus.
And, when Arsenal were a real force, they had plenty of youthful talent.
Crucially, they had seasoned leaders too — and one of Arteta’s
THIS week should be a wake up call for those who think VAR is the answer.
Before it was brought in, I was in favour of using the technology.
Maybe there is still a case for it, but it’s clear that what we’ve had to date doesn’t work.
Some of the decisions made via VAR have just beggared belief.
It’s something that is annoying football people at all levels now.
Prefer
Some prefer watching Championship games, rather than the Premier League, because there’s no VAR.
The constant tweaking with the laws of the game doesn’t help either.
We’re told that some tweaks are down to wanting to let the game flow.
We’re all in favour of that, but where is the consistency?
The decisions change from game to game.
It’s baffling and people are fed up with it.
VAR has just got to be scrapped.
Now. big challenges will be finding true leaders.
I think Kieran Tierney falls into that category.
I don’t understand why he isn’t on the team.
Zinchenko is decent but I feel Tierney is better than him — and it was baffling that he wasn’t brought on yesterday.
Possible
United’s big change has to come in midfield.
Get Casemiro in there as quickly as possible.
He offers much more than the others.
Overall, this was a fine game, a United/Arsenal clash to savour.
They’re not back, but both are in a good place.
PREMIER League bosses have ordered an urgent review into the “abysmal” VAR decisions at Chelsea and Newcastle.
It’s unprecedented step but shows the level of frustration over the decisions which denied Newcastle and West Ham clear goals against Crystal Palace and Chelsea on Saturday.
Both teams thought they had scored with the goals confirmed by the on-pitch referee — only for the goals to be disallowed after VAR.
Referees’ body PGMOL will now be expected to explain the reasoning behind each decision.
It puts referees’ chief Mike Riley under renewed pressure as he is set to leave his post at the PGMOL at the end of the season with former Premier League ref
Howard Webb coming in.
Match of the Day pundit Alan Shearer said:
“At this level, you’re in the big boys’ league, you’ve got to get that decision right. He’s had no help from the VAR whatsoever.
“Mike Riley [head of the PGMOL] wasn’t up to the job, they’ve got rid of him although he’s still in it until Howard Webb comes in at Christmas.
“He’s got a big job on his hands — far, far too many errors. VAR is not the problem, it’s the people as I keep saying that are running it who are the problem.”
For the Premier League to step in publicly and demand a full review shows the level of disquiet among league chiefs.