VAR has been in the spotlight this week, following a controversial weekend. And while Nottingham Forest weren’t directly affected this time around, a report has suggested they may have plenty of grievances when it comes to technology.
Mistakes made in Arsenal’s 1-1 draw with Brentford and Crystal Palace’s draw with Brighton and Hove Albion had significant consequences. Lee Mason’s VAR failed to detect an offside in the build-up to the Bees’ equalizer at Emirates Stadium, while Brighton had a goal mistakenly disallowed when offside lines were drawn against the wrong defender.
The errors led Howard Webb, director of refereeing for Professional Game Match Officials Limited, to contact the Gunners and Seagulls to acknowledge and explain them. Webb then called a meeting of all Premier League officials at Stockley Park in the wake of the incidents as he sought to identify what went wrong. Mason has not been selected for VAR service for the next round of Premier League matches.
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Forest has been on the receiving end of many controversial VAR decisions this season. And it is that, according to Cuatro Cuatro Dos, without the intervention of the VAR they would be in the upper half of the table.
It’s impossible to say for sure how the outcome of matches would be affected, of course. But the numbers have been analyzed based on “defining moments”. The report explains: “If a player receives a penalty from VAR and marks it, we take it away. If a player had a goal disallowed by VAR, we added it. We can’t do much more than that without things getting really technical.”
The table was put together ahead of Liverpool’s derby win over Everton on Monday night. But this is what Four Four Two says it would look like without VAR.
1 Arsenal – 53 points
2 Manchester City – 48 points
3 Manchester United – 44 points
4 Newcastle United – 42 points
5 Brighton and Hove Albion – 39 points
6 Tottenham Hotspur – 39 points
7Brentford – 34 points
8Fulham – 33 points
9 Chelsea – 31 points
10 Nottingham Forest – 27 points
11 Crystal Palace – 25 points
12Leicester City – 24 points
13 Liverpool – 24 points
14 Aston Villa – 24 points
15 Wolverhampton Wanderers – 23 points
16 Leeds United – 22 points
17 West Ham United – 22 points
18 Everton – 20 points
19 Bournemouth – 19 points
20 Southampton – 16 points
Mason was in the seat at Stockley Park during Forest’s controversial draw with Brentford in November. The Reds had three penalty appeals rejected, only to see their opponents take a spot kick for a similar level of contact in the box after Mason told on-field referee Andrew Marriner to look at the monitor. The injustice angered Forest fans.
Meanwhile, Reds head coach Steve Cooper was charged by the Football Association in October over comments about referee Thomas Bramall after the 1-0 loss to Wolverhampton Wanderers at Molineux. The match was decided by a Ruben Neves penalty which was awarded after Bramall went to his pitch monitor, following a lengthy VAR check, with Harry Toffolo penalized for a handball. A similar incident in the first half had seen nothing given when a Neco Williams shot was blocked.
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