Discussion
@mlawton Although the most damning thing may not be Tomkins' prose (he's a partial after all) but the charts.
The charts are not lying.
https://tomkinstimes.substack.com/p/man-united-and-liverpool-treated
Sometimes you may take a few data points in isolation and think.... MEH that's not a lot, is it?
But taken together, first you see pattern. Then you see process, then you see system in the numbers.
@vruz I actually thought Kavanagh called a pretty decent game on his own. He didn’t give the penalty, perhaps being unsure of contact, and allowing VAR the option. Fair. Awarding a penalty was justifiable, if harsh.
The AR advising a possible offside on Robbo, from his vantage & immediate thinking, was entirely justifiable.
But VAR disallowing the goal continues a trend of malpractice, having also recently upgraded VVD’s foul to a penalty, despite reasonable doubt as to location. Smells bad.
@mlawton Yes, I mean refereeing in the broader sense of the process and decisions at every level.
@vruz I knew that was your sense too, but lacked the room in the post. (And I’m ranting!)
As for VAR, I would like to understand why some clubs always seem to benefit and others don’t. Why do some teams always get the same referee assignments? Why don’t we follow the example of rugby, which has no whiff of impropriety in their VAR system? How are VAR officials also peers with match officials? How are match officials graded?
It seems to me that the real problems are systemic, not personnel.
@vruz not recently, but now I’ll have to go find it.
I’d previously found his argument on the bizarre number of fouls against LFC relative to other high possession teams to be very compelling.
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