CONTRADICTING MANAGERS, VAR & POOR DECISIONS

Is it just me or is the whole of the Premier League from managers, officials, and pundits just completely contradictory this season.

From one minute bashing refereeing decisions and complaining about the lack of success from VAR this season when something goes against them. To when something goes their way, they stay quiet and allow it to happen.

Yesterday in his post-match press conference Ange Postecoglou quite bluntly argued that he would “never question an official about a decision”, however multiple times throughout the game he berated the referee Michael Oliver, leading him to receive a yellow card in the first half!

Tottenham manager spoke about how he felt the constant berating of referee decisions was wrong

Also, this weekend we have seen Mikel Arteta completely for want of a better phrase, lose his s**t, in his post-match interview about officials and decisions, yet a few weeks ago when he was asked about the same issue he was as diplomatic as can be saying that “mistakes happen”.

They aren’t the only two managers this season to have contradicting viewpoints on VAR and refereeing decisions depending on whether it benefits them or not. Whether it is right or wrong in the case, it should be called out and an agreed point should be found. That will of course never happen because tribalism and rivalry mean too much to everyone in football.

I genuinely sometimes think people would rather see the referees get decisions wrong every weekend and hope that their club isn’t negatively affected than address the issue which is clearly affecting every club in the Premier League and allow for better officiating overall throughout the league.

The statements that were released by both Arsenal and Liverpool after both clubs had felt they had been completely compromised due to a refereeing decision; I believe in my opinion are the correct thing to do in the end. For too long it is just a 3-paragraph apology letter from the PGMOL (refereeing body) and a quick discussion of the issue before it is brushed under the carpet ready for the next weekend for the same thing to happen again.

It's a vicious cycle of terrible decision happens, the majority of people agree it was wrong, PGMOL issue apology, 2-day discussion on TV and then repeat. The most frustrating thing about it is the fact that the discussion each week is the same and the same issues keep being addressed yet nothing progressive ever gets done to resolve the issue.

Just an FYI for the PGMOL, giving a referee the weekend off is not punishment for completing messing up their job that millions of people can agree was wrong. They are meant to be the best quality out there for the best league in the world. Clearly what we have seen this season is that the officials are not up to standard.

I think in the end we will continue having this endless discussion and nothing will properly change. I fail to have confidence in the Premier League or PGMOL to address and adequately fix the issue because they want to protect a group of people who are getting away with daylight robbery in some cases.

I’m not expecting referees to be robots that get 100% of their decisions fully correct all of the time, because they are humans, but the number of failures that have been made this season are certainly nowhere near top level officiating. The longer that it fails to be addressed the worse the problem will get, and we will end up at a point where it is that bad that we will just become used to it and expect it.

Don’t ever start me on the officials in Europe and how low the bar is for a penalty in UEFA competitions!