At the end of every season the Premier League’s stakeholders – that’s coaches, captains and fans, among others – are asked for their opinion on how the game is refereed.
Last summer the high threshold for VAR intervention was supported by 80%.
Clubs may feel they have been wronged, as Manchester United were at Bournemouth.
But they don’t mention the times they benefited from this high threshold.
Like the push by Leny Yoro before United scored at Fulham, or the penalty for Jaydee Canvot’s hold on Cunha (which also led to a VAR red card), or Diogo Dalot’s potential red-card challenge on Jeremy Doku.
Clubs have selective memory when decisions go against them.
There have been fewer VAR interventions this season, but the accuracy has remained the same at 94%.
PGMOL would probably say that shows more decisions are being made on the field rather than being left to VAR.
The independent Key Match Incidents Panel results say that on-field accuracy has remained stable, at 86%, since 2023-24.
Take that on face value and on-field standards have neither improved nor regressed.
English football’s biggest problem is that it doesn’t know what it wants.
It doesn’t like VAR getting involved in games.
The Premier League has the lowest intervention rate in Europe, but then you get clubs saying it must intervene more when a decision doesn’t go their way.
Clubs are always unhappy when a decision goes against them.
But they are strangely silent when they are the beneficiaries.
