\n<\/p>\n
Has there ever been a better advert for the video assistant referee? <\/b><\/p>\n
Newcastle’s 3-1 FA Cup fourth-round win at Aston Villa was full of controversy with the video assistant referee (VAR) once again the big talking point – even though it wasn’t even in use.<\/p>\n
For this season and the previous FA Cup campaign, it has not been used until the fifth round, with many fans looking forward to a return to football without interruptions from technology.<\/p>\n
But referee Chris Kavanagh will have been wishing he had VAR to fall back on at Villa Park after an offside opener for the hosts, a blatant penalty for the visitors not awarded, plus at least three other controversial decisions that could have affected the outcome.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Newcastle – who were on the wrong end of the majority of the calls – progressed into the last 16, but manager Eddie Howe couldn’t hide his disappointment with the officials.<\/p>\n
Tammy Abraham’s opener for Villa was offside, Lucas Digne’s second-half handball should have been given as a penalty rather than a free-kick outside the box, while the French full-back was also fortunate to escape a red card for a reckless challenge on Jacob Murphy.<\/p>\n
Howe said: “I’m so torn because the game is better without VAR in terms of excitement and the spectacle for the supporters and us when we’re living a moment live.<\/p>\n
“But it does give accurate results. It does make the game more precise in terms of decision-making. You have to respect those moments. They’re worth their weight in gold.<\/p>\n
“When VAR is there, there is a tendency to think, ‘oh well I won’t give that because VAR is there to check it’. Then your decision-making isn’t as sharp as it would normally have to be. Maybe there is a difference there.<\/p>\n
“I’m always torn on VAR because I love the raw emotion when a goal goes in and you don’t see a flag or hear a whistle and you know the goal is going to stand and nobody can take it away from you. But, on the other side of that, I was wishing there was VAR for the goal they scored against us – and probably throughout the entire game.”<\/p>\n
Villa, themselves, will be reflecting on a straight red card for goalkeeper Marco Bizot in first-half added time when they were leading 1-0, and could argue Dan Burn was offside for the visitors’ equaliser through Sandro Tonali.<\/p>\n
Boss Unai Emery, added: “Today it makes sense understanding that VAR is necessary. It’s necessary to help the referees.”<\/p>\n
After a season so far, which has seen VAR the talking point on a weekly basis, has a weekend without it shown the potential problems?<\/p>\n
Ex-England striker Alan Shearer told BBC Match of the Day: “For five or six months, they have been relying on VAR and they come into this situation and it all changes.<\/p>\n
“In their defence, which is hard for me, they have VAR for five to six months, then come into a huge game without it, so it is difficult for them.<\/p>\n
“I would like the officials to do their job properly. It is not too much to ask, is it. <\/p>\n
“If you ever needed any evidence of the damage that VAR has done to referees, I think today is a great example of that. These guys look petrified to make a decision today because they didn’t have a comfort blanket.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Has there ever been a better advert for the video assistant referee? Newcastle’s 3-1 FA Cup fourth-round win at Aston Villa was full of controversy with the video assistant referee (VAR) once again the big talking point – even though it wasn’t even in use. For this season and the previous FA Cup campaign, it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}