VAR criminal but City can’t be collared by the hand of Plod...
ON the biggest stage, in one moment, VAR, the officials and the law all failed football. Simple as that.
The system designed to bring an end to injustices on the field created a temporary one of its own in the English game’s showpiece match.
Thankfully, it was not a decisive one. Thankfully, in the grand scheme of things, it did not matter. Thankfully, the best team won an FA Cup Final that was absorbing, without being of the highest quality.
To put it quite brutally, Manchester City were far from being at their best but were still good enough to overcome a Manchester United team that never got any sort of grip in midfield. And as United were relying solely on counter-attacks, manager Erik ten Hag should be regretting his decision not to bring Alejandro Garnacho on at half-time rather than just after the hour mark.
Ten Hag might as well have started the teenager, for all the impact Jadon Sancho had on proceedings.
But the chances are this imperious City side would have triumphed anyway because not even the scandal of United’s only goal of the game could deny them the second leg of a possible Treble.
Before Jack Grealish jumped for a cross with Aaron Wan-bissaka just around the half-hour mark, this contest resembled Premier League versus Championship.
Grealish slightly misjudged the arc of the ball and Wanbissaka’s header brushed the City man’s raised hand, having travelled a distance of no more than a foot in a nanosecond. After VAR David Coote told Paul Tierney to have a look at the monitor, and the referee inevitably gave the penalty – converted by Bruno Fernandes – social media was flooded by people trying to tell us that, under the letter of the law, it was the correct decision. They were trying to tell us that the law is the ass – not the VAR system itself, not Tierney, not Coote. They were wrong. All parties were in the same bracket. There was talk about Grealish’s arm being in an ‘unnatural position’ and that, according to the regulation, makes it a spot-kick. But what is and isn’t unnatural is a matter of opinion, and Coote and Tierney should have decided there was nothing unnatural about Grealish here.
It did not help that Coote had decided Casemiro topping Manuel Akanji with a potential ankle-breaker earlier in proceedings was not worthy of a trip to the screen for Tierney.
Football needs VAR, that much is certain.
But it also needs the right people watching the screens.
As referees’ chief Howard Webb, sat in the posh seats, surely knows, there are not enough of them around at the moment. But the use of VAR needs to evolve. Whether or not
you think the Grealish ‘offence’ was a penalty or not, it was not the type of ‘offence’ that VAR was introduced to specifically identify.
There would hardly have been a ripple of dissent had a penalty not been given – not even from Fernandes, who seems to complain about the ball being round on occasions.
As it happens, the injustice of the decision did not lead to a grander injustice, Ilkay Gundogan following up his record-breaking early hit with a left-footed winner six minutes into the second half.
The well of superlatives for Gundogan’s contribution to Pep Guardiola’s City era has been exhausted. That he might well simply walk away after Saturday’s Champions League Final must be almost unthinkable for City fans.
But you only had to look at the supporting cast for Gundogan’s two-goal show to know that no single departure will hurt City as long as Pep is in charge.
A couple of the marquee names failed to fire but John Stones was immaculate. A fantastic player is developing into a new form of fantastic player under Guardiola.
And, during Pep’s tenure, how many players can you say that about? Plenty.
Quite simply, they were too good for United… and for the officials.