Thread by @DaleJohnsonESPN

So, after a false start, here's the Monday VAR thread, looking at:

- Why the high bar causes all the issues
- Differences in application
- Kane & Robertson
- Xhaka & Gelhardt
- Penalties for Liverpool, Newcastle
- Other decisions

PGMOL seems to have tied itself up in knots trying to be something it can never be: VAR at Euro 2020.

Fact is there was a higher frequency of VAR overturns at Euro 2020, compared to the Premier League.

But Euro 2020 seemed to have a light touch, and the PL wanted the same.

The Euros had an average of roughly 1 KMI (Key Match-changing Incident) a game. A light touch was possible, because there aren't that many contentious incidents.

But in domestic league football, the average is up around 3. It means the noise around VAR will always be louder.

But that's only part of the story, not the true reason the PL has ended up in a really bad place.

The problem is the high bar, the mechanism whereby PGMOL is trying to apply that light touch.

What it really does is restrict VARs from applying their professional subjectivity.

Let's take Chris Kavanagh, the VAR in Spurs v Liverpool.

UEFA rates him as one of the best VARs in Europe. He was the VAR for Spain vs. Switzerland, the Euro 2020 QF.

He, along with Stuart Attwell, is selected for many UCL games as VAR.

And at Euro 2020, the English VAR teams (Attwell and Kavanagh) did 7 games, with Italy and Spain on 8.

Germany's VAR teams did 15 matches, but that's because they were knocked out early and England, Italy and Spain made it through to the SF and Final.

So saying Kavanagh "isn't fit for the PL" doesn't seem fair. UEFA thinks differently.

There has to be a deeper reason for VAR's issues in the Premier League.

I explained "clear and obvious" last weekend, but that high bar needs a bit more explanation.

https://twitter.com/DaleJohnsonESPN/status/1470711174849503235?s=20

The high bar appears to be robbing VARs of their personal judgement.

If a referee describes an incident that even remotely fits the replays, there will be no full VAR review.

It leads to a process where inaction from a VAR can almost always be explained by this process.

But recently there have been LOTS of KMIs.

And some of these KMIs have come from really bad refereeing decisions.

The referee's pitch decision must be key. But if the process is pre-weighted so far towards the referee it renders VAR impotent on some obvious decisions.

In all leagues, the ref describes the incident and the VAR sees if the replays match.

In the Prem, it seems like if the replays remotely back up the referee then the VAR won't get involved.

If you keep have loads of KMIs, especially major ones, this is unsustainable.

VARs need to give real advice to referees over these big incidents. We need better decisions rather than a false safety net.

After VAR had been better this season, we've gone back to April when there seemed to be little logic to decisions.

After 5 VAR penalties were awarded between Nov. 28 and Dec. 11, plus another 7 awarded by referees last week, something seems to have changed.

The high bar works if refs are getting the BIG decisions right. But now they aren't, and and neither are the VARs, due to this process.

Let's take the two red card incidents at Spurs v Liverpool.

The issue with the Kane is the distance he travels to make the challenge and the intensity that brings. Yes, there isn't much contact, but it is above the ankle.

UEFA has a clear approach. Any tackle above the ankle with any intensity, with the sole leading, even if minimal contact or even sometimes none at all, is a red.

I have no doubt that in the UCL, Kavanagh would have advised a red. UEFA would have demanded it in its protocols.

Kavanagh was the VAR when Remo Freuler was sent off for Switzerland against Spain (though by the referee).

There wasn't much contact, as was the case with Kane, but UEFA pretty much has zero tolerance for these challenges.

Remember, point of contact isn't the deciding factor. On such challenges, force and intensity is what makes a red or yellow card.

Kane's seemed very similar to VAR red cards shown to Southampton's James Ward-Prowse and Sheffield United's John Lundstram (last season).

If the ref says there wasn't force and intensity in the way Kane caught Robertson, the VAR can buy into that - if he chooses to.

But if Kavanagh is being subjective as a referee himself, he must thinks it's a red? The high bar seems to prevent him judging the challenge.

For Andrew Robertson, however, his challenge on Emerson Royal kicked through his opponent with a high level of brutality.

Finally, the VAR got this one correct.

It is a different kind of challenge to Kane, but both should have been red.

On Granit Xhaka & Joe Gelhardt.

These should both be yellows, (VAR cannot advise a yellow for Xhaka who wasn't booked).

There isn't enough intensity in the tackle from Xhaka for VAR - so a ref yellow (like Gelhardt) would have been the correct outcome.

Let's go back to the high bar again.

Diogo Jota wasn't given a penalty because he was stopping when the challenge was made?

You can make the replays fit that if you want to. If the high bar says you can.

As a referee you have to look at that and think it's a penalty.

As a VAR trying to make the pictures fit a description, you can do that too.

The only answer is that a VAR will only give an overturn now in specific circumstances. It has to be absolutely different from replays.

Ryan Fraser wasn't given a penalty because Joao Cancelo had taken control of the ball when Ederson clattered into the Newcastle player.

You can make the replays fit that if you want to. If the high bar says you can.

But it's 100% a penalty.

If that were a defender making the challenge rather than Ederson, I'm 100% sure a penalty would have been given.

Again, it feels as though the VAR, Craig Pawson, has found a reason to support the referee rather than make a judgement on what HE has seen as a referee.

The VARs must stop being restricted by a bar so high they are trying to find reasons that a referee was right - even if they probably know he was wrong.

There's no other reason why the VARs would be failing to intervene on such decisions. It's a reluctance to get involved.

Other incidents.

Mo Salah's handball in the lead up to Andrew Robertson's goal is no longer an offence, nor would it have been last season.

The handball has to be deliberate, and like Odsonne Edouard for Palace last weekend it was accidental. Goal the correct decision.

On N'Golo Kante's possible handball. Firstly, I'm not even sure it did his his arm. It may look like it in image 2, but the angle is inconclusive.

Even so, the fact it hits Kante's body means the ball isn't running through to Daniel Podence for DOGSO.

And on Podence's disallowed goal (VAR not involved), there was a 23-second delay while the referee and his assistant confirmed that Raul Jimenez had become active in trying to play the ball from an offside position.

Correct decision.

Kante could easily have got a penalty from Conor Coady's challenge - another above the ankle.

It just seems to be one of those bizarre unwritten laws where a tackle isn't penalised after a player has got a shot off. It happens time and again in all leagues.

And finally. Don't think there's no controversy elsewhere!

AC Milan had an 89th minute equaliser at home to Napoli ruled out by VAR for offside.

Olivier Giroud ruled impacting a defender as he laid on the floor, shortly before the goal was scored.