Premier League panel show STUPIDITY as Liverpool suffer once again

Liverpool have suffered once again from inept Premier League decisions. Surely things have to change?

Liverpool were outplayed on Sunday against Manchester City. No one could really argue that and while City didn't have too many golden chances, they still controlled the game.

The Reds' second-half improvement was as much about City taking their foot off the gas as it was Liverpool getting their act together. And it's important to remember that even with that improvement, they still lost the second half 1-0.

It was a miserable performance but one that could have gone in another direction. Liverpool thought they had a foothold in the game when, with the game at 1-0, Virgil van Dijk scored from a corner.

However, it was then disallowed for offside as Andy Robertson was deemed to have infringed Gianluigi Donnarumma. The linesman told referee Chris Kavanagh that he thought the Scot was in the way of the goalkeeper, preventing him from adequately dealing with Van Dijk's effort.

VAR then agreed with it all, disallowing the goal and keeping things at 1-0 City. Now a Premier League panel has had a look at things - and it only highlights how stupid it all is.

Virgil van Dijk goal should have stood

The Times reports that a Key Match Incident panel ruled that Van Dijk’s goal should have counted. Robertson wasn’t in Donnarumma’s line of site and didn’t impact his inability to save the shot.

Now, that isn’t a shock. The replays clearly showed that Robertson wasn’t in his way at any stage. Him ducking under the ball changed absolutely nothing about how things played out.

But it’s this part of the ruling that shows how stupid VAR has become (or always has been):

“However, even though the KMI panel has agreed that Robertson was not affecting Donnarumma enough to be deemed offside, it also found that it was correct for there to have been no intervention from the video assistant referee, Michael Oliver.”

That doesn’t make sense. It makes absolutely no sense that VAR shouldn’t have intervened if the goal should actually have stood.

The argument for that is always the same: that VAR should only intervene when the decision is clearly wrong. It was clear here, certainly in our collective opinion, but let’s pretend it wasn’t.

Even if VAR feel it wasn’t clear, the fact their view was unarguably better than that of the assistant referee should have changed the decision. VAR isn’t just having a look at a subjective call - it’s having a look from a perspective that the on-field referees couldn’t possibly have.

It’s stance and judgement is superior to that of the referees and surely anyone could see that their opinion is far more important than retaining the referee’s? Changing the decision isn’t them saying ‘you got it wrong’ it’s saying ‘you couldn’t have seen it like this’.

Because the assistant probably did think that Robertson was blocking Donnarumma’s line of site. He saw things side on and wasn’t able to actually make that judgement with any certainty.

You know who could? VAR. Instead, they shirked the responsibility and decided it was more important to stick with the decision of someone who couldn’t see it properly.

This is far from the first time that Liverpool suffered at the result of an awful, idiotic process. It probably won’t be the last. We’ll just keep on complaining into the wind.

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