Sean says VAR piles more pressure on penalty takers
The introduction of VAR to the Premiership has, predictably, not been without its problems.
Correct decisions are being overturned, and wrong ones overlooked by the men in the comfy chairs at Baillieston.
Despite assurances to the contrary, they appear to be involving themselves in situations other than rectifying clear and obvious errors.
Hibernian manager Lee Johnson was left fuming by the Video Assistant Referee’s interventions during his side’s 4-1 defeat at Pittodrie on Friday night.
But there is also the law of unintended consequences, where the new technology inadvertently punishes the victims as much as the offenders they are so desperate to catch.
Livingston midfielder Sean Kelly scored his side’s second equaliser with a spot-kick in their 3-2 win at Kilmarnock the same night.
But he claims the time it takes for officials to arrive at their decisions makes it harder for the players tasked with converting the spotkick awards.
To make matters worse, Kelly was already under the spotlight, having missed Livi’s previous penalty during their 2-1 defeat by St Mirren in Paisley last month.
“Did I feel under pressure because of that? Not really – I just wasn’t for putting it over the bar again,” said the 29-year-old.
“I didn’t want to lift it off the ground this time, but I was confident I was going to score.
“However, you do end up being under more pressure. You have more time to think about it while you wait for VAR to decide whether it is a penalty or not in the first place.
“That can be a bad thing because you can talk yourself out of where you had originally decided to put the ball.
“But I believe you need to stay with your pregame plan, and stick it where you first thought.
“You just have to go for it and, if the goalkeeper saves it, then so be it. But at least you’ve stuck to your first choice.
“I hadn’t even taken another penalty at
training since that miss against St Mirren. I was haunted by it!
“Seriously, though, I trusted myself to go back to my old routine.
“I was actually surprised that I missed the previous one. I don’t know what happened, and I don’t really like to talk about it.
“But it was closer to going over the stand than it was to going in. However, I was pretty confident I’d put that one away on Friday night.”
It was only Livingston’s second away win of the campaign, but Killie would give anything for a record like that, having taken just one point from their seven outings on the road.
On Wednesday, they travel to Tannadice to face bottom club, Dundee United, who can move level on points with Derek McInnes’ men with a victory.
Centre-back Joe Wright, who scored the first brace of his senior career against Livingston, claims that the bare statistics don’t tell the whole story.
“Do we have enough to get away from this? Definitely,” insisted the Yorkshireman.
“Our away form looks terrible, if I’m honest, but we’ve only been losing by the odd goal.
“There was really just the heavy defeat at Aberdeen, when the performance wasn’t good enough. We conceded too many goals.
“So we can take the positives from the tight games, knowing that eventually we will pick up points.
“There are still plenty of games left, so this one’s no more important than it would have been before we lost to Livingston.
“We were on a good run before the game against St Johnstone, so we have to get back on track now.
“We need to get a positive performance and a positive result as well, and look to address that away form.”
Wright hadn’t found the net at all in his previous 16 appearances for Killie, but would have swapped his two goals for three points.
“I’d rather not score and get something out of the game,” he said. “I’ll probably look back at it, and be a bit happier about it in a couple of days.
“But at the moment, I couldn’t care less.”