How is that offside?

[ck-]

Coventry goal against Manchester United. Attacker’s left little toe nail was 1/2cm closer to the goal.

Surely that isn’t what the offside rule is for? 

[Loftyhites]

I really hope that we get promoted on Saturday but I’m not sure that I want to ever go back to the premier league. Never being able to properly celebrate a goal until all checks are complete is not what football is about (for me, anyway). 

[Bris Vegas]

Offside is offside.

It doesn’t matter how you draw it up, whether daylight between attacker and defender or not, it is simply on or off.

It’s incredibly harsh but get rid of VAR and you end up with Coventry in the final via an offside goal.

We either accept humans (officials) make errors (something that managers, pundits, fans etc. can’t seem to do) or we use technology.

Many prefer the days of none VAR. but I also remember in the days of no VAR teams like Man Utd would bully referees and you’d never get a decision at Old Trafford.

[Day]

Brutal for Coventry and their fans.

The feeling of turning round a 3-0 score line in 20 minutes, to then thinking you’ve won it at the death…..for the captain to go and Sky the penalty.

I’d be emotionally done in after that for the next week.

Man Utd players got to be feeling pretty embarrassed after that.

[TheresOnlyWanChope]

It should be… if any part of the attacker is onside, they are  onside. Would feel a lot more acceptable getting rulers out for this than the current situation. 

[ck-]

8 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

Offside is offside.

It doesn’t matter how you draw it up, whether daylight between attacker and defender or not, it is simply on or off.

It’s incredibly harsh but get rid of VAR and you end up with Coventry in the final via an offside goal.

We either accept humans (officials) make errors (something that managers, pundits, fans etc. can’t seem to do) or we use technology.

Many prefer the days of none VAR. but I also remember in the days of no VAR teams like Man Utd would bully referees and you’d never get a decision at Old Trafford.

That’s true. And I accept that wherever you draw the line, there will be millimetre decisions. 
My point was that this isn’t what the offside rule was for. It was to prevent persistent goal hanging with a defending team just hoofing the ball up to a player who was dawdling near the goal. 
This seems to be against the spirit of that. 

[Carl Sagan]

Not convinced they stopped the action at the right millisecond or that they were correct drawing them from the defender's foot when other ball-playing parts of his body looked closer to goal. Very cruel. The system cannot be accurate so should there be some sort of margin of error? 

[LazloW]

I think there should be something akin to the "umpire's call" in cricket. If the margin by which they are offside is so small that no human could possibly tell the difference by the naked eye, then the decision goes the way the linesman called it. If that means making the lines a bit thicker or something else, then so be it.  Other elements of VAR are there to (apparently) correct clear and obvious errors.  While offside is factual, the decision today was not a clear and obvious error; he wasn't standing a foot offside and the linesman was asleep, it was millimetres.  Allow for a small margin of error.  

As someone on Twitter said "I am VAR, destroyer of dreams!".  Not how it should be.

[Grumpy Git]

As soon as I watched Bryson's goal v Southampton in the FA Cup chalked-off for offside, I realised VAR was done.

Remember the original argument was to "avoid obvious errors".

 

[Highgate]

10 minutes ago, Carl Sagan said:

Not convinced they stopped the action at the right millisecond or that they were correct drawing them from the defender's foot when other ball-playing parts of his body looked closer to goal. Very cruel. The system cannot be accurate so should there be some sort of margin of error? 

Yeah you can never be sure if the action has been stopped at precisely the right moment or not.  But if you introduce a margin of error, won't the debate just switch to whether the toenail was within the margin of error line or not, rather than whether it was ahead or behind the last defender?  Whatever criterion is used, whether it's offside by any amount, margin or error or 'clear daylight' between the players, the decision will often come down to judgement calls based on millimetres. 

I'd be happy to bin VAR altogether and go back to best guess by the officials.  At least then people could go back to celebrating goals naturally when they occur.  

[maxjam]

Didn't watch the match but from this image it looks like the Coventry player is more or less stationary and the Man Utd player is jogging back - a fraction of a second later he would have been onside.

Regardless, as @Grumpy Git rightly said, VAR was bought in to avoid obvious errors, with the game moving at speed and it being impossible to tell the millisecond the ball has left the boot, far thicker offside lines should be used and if they overlap its onside.  You can barely split the 2 players in question (especially the centre of body rather than toenail) imho the goal should have probably stood if that was the margin.

 

Edited April 21 by maxjam

[Ram-Alf]

38 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

We either accept humans (officials) make errors (something that managers, pundits, fans etc. can’t seem to do) or we use technology.

It would appear that humans and technology are at odds with each other.

Coventry get a Penalty for handball

Forest denied a penalty for handball

As for the offside...this is what VAR was brought in for, As Graeme Souness once said...you can't be a little pregnant your either onside or offside

 

[Carl Sagan]

25 minutes ago, Highgate said:

Yeah you can never be sure if the action has been stopped at precisely the right moment or not.  But if you introduce a margin of error, won't the debate just switch to whether the toenail was within the margin of error line or not, rather than whether it was ahead or behind the last defender?  Whatever criterion is used, whether it's offside by any amount, margin or error or 'clear daylight' between the players, the decision will often come down to judgement calls based on millimetres. 

I'd be happy to bin VAR altogether and go back to best guess by the officials.  At least then people could go back to celebrating goals naturally when they occur.  

You're right I'm just shifting the goalposts. As has been said many times, the only way to make VAR work is to have it on the big screen while officials discuss the decision with the fans listening to the conversation. If they're not even prepared to do that, we're much better off ditching it. 

[nottingram]

Unfortunately as soon as you decide you are going to check offsides with lines there can’t really be any leeway or subjectivity, it is simply a yes/no decision.

The only way is to treat it like any other decision and use the naked eye which would hopefully eliminate the shockers and mean the really tight ones stay as is. But dunno if that’s any better and will never happen anyway. 

[Bris Vegas]

26 minutes ago, Ram-Alf said:

It would appear that humans and technology are at odds with each other.

Coventry get a Penalty for handball

Forest denied a penalty for handball

As for the offside...this is what VAR was brought in for, As Graeme Souness once said...you can't be a little pregnant your either onside or offside

 

They can make offside like goal line technology, automated. And that is what they are working on.

I’d scrap VAR for the rest and just leave it to human decisions.

But let’s be honest. VAR has come in because all those involved didn’t accept human error.

 

[Crewton]

Part of me thinks that's a very unfair way to lose out on a cup-final, then I remember that their fans were among those who were going to have a party when our club died, so a different part of me thinks 

 

[Kernow]

1 hour ago, Loftyhites said:

I really hope that we get promoted on Saturday but I’m not sure that I want to ever go back to the premier league. Never being able to properly celebrate a goal until all checks are complete is not what football is about (for me, anyway). 

VAR will be in the Championship before long, too. Football just seems to get less enjoyable as seasons go on, I don't know if I would want to be in the PL either.

If you don't spend enough, you get battered, if you spend too much, you get punished. Oh and the only way to avoid punishment is to sell your best players to the top 6 to avoid more sanctions. Every season finishing 17th is a positive.

I'd much rather the big clubs f***** off to the Super League, take their VAR with them, let football go back to how it used to be.

[Gritstone Ram]

If you use technology then you have to accept the gnats knacker decisions.

[ram59]

Technology is already available to make offside decisions almost fully automated.

Every player already wears device that tracks his movement on the pitch, put an accelerometer in the match balls which detects every time the ball is struck. Every time the ball is struck, an instant map of every player's tracker is produced, the decision is made from the player's tracker and will always need to be worn the same position on the body. The human element will still need to decide whether the player is interfering with play.

Obviously, all players wearing the tracker in the same place will give an advantage depending on which way the players are facing, but it would be consistent and the same for both sides.

[RoyMac5]

1 hour ago, Bris Vegas said:

They can make offside like goal line technology, automated. And that is what they are working on.

I’d scrap VAR for the rest and just leave it to human decisions.

But let’s be honest. VAR has come in because all those involved didn’t accept human error.

 

Nope. The big clubs with money didn't accept that referees made human decisions. 

VAR should only be used for things like line calls, yes or no. You have to laugh that there's not a line call on things like corners or throw-ins, but is there on a bit of a boot is offside!

Edited April 21 by RoyMac5