Referees’ failure to study big picture adds to frustrations

With so few decisions being overturned by VAR, the Premier League needs to examine why referees are not using pitchside monitors

Carrow Road, on Aug 24, remains the only place where a subjective decision by a Premier League referee was overturned. In the 89 games this season before last night, there has just been the one, which, at the very least, is a remarkable statistic.

It came after 78 minutes as Chelsea believed they had scored against Norwich City, with Kurt Zouma bundling the ball into the net after goalkeeper Tim Krul had fumbled under pressure from Olivier Giroud. Referee Martin Atkinson gave the goal, but changed his mind after consultation with the video assistant referee.

Chelsea went on to win 3-2, with two goals from Tammy Abraham helping to earn Frank Lampard his first win as manager. So the headlines were always going to be about that rather than “yet another contentious moment for the newly installed technology”, as one match reporter put it.

Atkinson was also the referee at Old Trafford on Sunday when he allowed a goal by Manchester United against Liverpool to stand despite Victor Lindelof kicking Divock Origi in the back of his left leg as possession was overturned.

Again the VAR looked at it but, this time, the subjective decision of the referee was backed. But was it less of a foul than what happened at Norwich? At neither Carrow Road nor Old Trafford did Atkinson check the pitchside monitor. All 20

Premier League grounds have them and, in fact, in all of the 89 league games played before Sheffield United hosted Arsenal last night, not once has a referee gone to the touchline to review an incident. Why not? When the technology was introduced the Premier League’s interim chief executive, Richard Masters, said the monitors would be used “sparingly” but since when did sparingly mean not at all? The Premier League accepts the point.

The concern over using the screens is that it will add, on average, 90 seconds and there was a lot of irritation over the time taken at the Women’s World Cup in the summer, although that also had to do with a lack of experience among the officials and language issues. There is also a perception that if a referee does go to the monitor it inevitably means he is reversing his decision as is usually the case in the Champions League. And while leagues such as Major League Soccer in the United States appear almost to want to use the monitors to add to the drama of the occasion, it is not something the Premier League approves of. But is that good enough? In those 89 games, there have been 19 decisions overturned with 15 of them to disallow a goal – usually