Why not let the assistant refs just do what they’re good at?
WE need to talk – about delayed offside flags. As with most innovations, it was worth giving this new directive time. Its introduction at the start of the season was bound to require an adjustment period. Old habits and all that.
English football thrives on immediacy.to be asked to accept that a passage of play has to unfold before an assistant referee raises their flag was inevitably going to be a frustration initially, but perhaps it might bed down.that was the hope, anyway.
Instead, with each passing week the irritation grows more acute.
Watching Liverpool against Manchester United at Anfield last Sunday, the exasperation really hit home. Five minutes before half-time,aaronwan-bissaka slid a pass down the line to Marcus Rashford who was clearly, comfortably, unarguably offside.
Even from a Covid-distant vantage point in the rafters at the top of the main stand, looking down on the byline at the other end of the pitch, it was easy to spot.
Up with play, the assistant referee would have needed to have been looking the wrong way down the Hubble telescope to have come to any other conclusion.yet no flag was raised.
Play was allowed to continue pointlessly until the move ground to a halt.then and only then did it finally wave.
No one gained from this charade. Not Rashford, who had to carry on his run knowing full well he was offside again; not the Liverpool defenders, who had to track back just in case; not the assistant referee, who was made to look hopelessly indecisive; and certainly not the poor old viewer, who had already suffered enough watching a disappointingly sterile game.
If any moment underlined the need for a change in thinking it was this.
The intention with the directive was to allow marginal calls to be delayed when a goalscoring opportunity was in the offing so thatvar could make the final, definitive judgement if a goal was eventually scored.
Instead, assistant referees are forced to avoid making decisions they previously would have made correctly without a second’s thought.the marginal has evolved into the straightforward and the straightforward into the clear and obvious.the upshot is wholly unnecessary aggravation waiting for the tiresome sideshow to play out.
The delayed offside time zone has become a sort of football purgatory. It is a blight on the game.
The point of any law or regulation is to draw a line in the sand, to provide clarity.
You might not agree with it but at least you know where you stand.this directive does precisely the opposite in muddying the waters for everyone involved.
It is annoying enough sitting at home; imagine the irritation if there were crowds inside stadia with skin in the game.
It is also an accident waiting to happen. Should a player be invalided out of a game in a shadow sequence that should never have taken place to begin with, we would never hear the last of it.
IT is time to do away with the system as it is and instruct the assistant referees to call offside as they see it. Straight away. It is the job they are stationed beside the pitch to do and they are pretty good at it. Take Leicester against Chelsea on Tuesday evening – two ‘goals’ from Marc Albrighton and Timo Werner both correctly crossed off by Sian Massey-ellis for offside.
VAR merely confirmed what her instinct, training and observation had told her already.
If it is a clear offside to the naked eye, then allow the assistant referee to flag for offside. If there is an element of doubt, then give the benefit to the attacking side. Either way, make the decision immediately on the pitch.
Being human, the assistant referees will get the odd one wrong but the trade-off in this case is worth it to lift the curse.
VAR will still be there to pick up the pieces if a rogue goal is scored.
As for the reverse scenario, that of the flag that wrongly stops a move which would have led to a goal – the one the delayed flag was brought in to correct – well, it would be back to never knowing.
And what you don’t know never hurt anyone.