Festive spirit was in short supply from video assistant referees (VAR) in the Premier League on Saturday, with three goals ruled out for marginal offside calls, exacerbating frustration about the technology being used for the first time in England this season.
On a day when Manchester United moved up to fifth place with a 2-0 win against Burnley and West Ham United fired manager Manuel Pellegrini after a 2-1 home loss to Leicester City, much of the debate in stadiums and on social media centered on disgruntlement at the forensic geometry being used to call on tight offside decisions — even if the correct calls were ultimately made.
“If VAR was a manager, he’d have been sacked weeks ago,” former England captain Gary Lineker tweeted after Norwich City striker Teemu Pukki had a goal disallowed for offside that required the VAR in a room outside London to apply lines and dots on the screen to judge.
Photo: Reuters
Their game against Tottenham Hotspur ended 2-2.
That came hours after Brighton & Hove Albion defender Dan Burn was adjudged offside by a matter of millimeters before scoring in a 2-0 win over AFC Bournemouth, and then Wilfried Zaha had the same call against him — or rather his armpit — after he set up Max Meyer’s disallowed goal for Crystal Palace in a 1-1 draw against Southampton.
“This is nonsense and it’s damaging the spectacle,” tweeted Arlo White, who calls matches for NBC in the US.
Narrow offside calls and the microscopic way they are judged have been the most contentious part of the VAR system.
“It’s small margins, but those are the rules they’re using,” Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson said. “It’s the procedure that they go on, so it’s either it is or it isn’t, so there isn’t much you can say.”
“I was never one to be banging the drum for VAR, but if the mass media want it and the public want it, once again you have to be mature enough to accept it,” he said.
Rotation was rife on Saturday as managers juggled their resources to deal with a second game in a 48-hour span for most teams during a hectic festive period that has another round of matches in the middle of this week.
Not for Pellegrini, though, whose 18-month spell in charge of West Ham is over after Leicester made nine changes, but still had enough to win at the Olympic Stadium in Pellegrini’s last match with the Hammers.
Kelechi Iheanacho and Demarai Gray scored for Leicester, either side of an equalizer by Pablo Fornals, as the visitors moved 10 points behind Liverpool having played two games more.
After the game, West Ham announced Pellegrini had been fired, with cochairmen David Gold and David Sullivan saying “a change is required to get the club back on track in line with our ambitions this season.”
West Ham were just a point and a place above the relegation zone.
Anthony Martial picked up his third goal in two games to help Man United win against Burnley as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team climbed to fifth, a point behind Chelsea.
Marcus Rashford added the second goal on the break deep into stoppage-time.
Chelsea were to play Arsenal after press time last night, as were Liverpool and Wolverhampton Wanderers, and Manchester City and Sheffield United.
In other games on Saturday, Everton beat Newcastle United 2-1 thanks to a double from Dominic Calvert-Lewin, while Watford closed to within three points of safety after a 3-0 win over Aston Villa.
Additional reporting by AFP
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