THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

Nobody can 'define' anything but we can call it a shit idea. I thought VAR was shit and I still do.

Trialling leads to the inevitable gradual phasing up the Leagues. Granted VAR didn't start down there but it started in 'less important' Leagues, wasn't very good and still brought over into the wider world of football. It is still atrocious and still Howard Webb claims its working.

Stop messing with the game.

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I think managed properly the blue card would be a good thing.

A Man City player (or any other team) performs a tactical foul in a crucial game against say Liverpool. Currently the player gets a yellow and City are not really penalised and Liverpool have no advantage. The yellow cards tot up and eventually that player misses a game against a different team but City are still able to play with a full team. With the blue card, the punishment is instant and City then have to play Liverpool for 10 mins with 10 men so they are penalised and Liverpool have an advantage. You never know, it might even cut down the number of these fouls and the harassing of refs.

My main concern with it would be the amount of time wasting that the penalised team would do in that 10 mins that they are down a man. This would need to be managed a lot better than it is now.

My solution, also controversial, would be to take the time keeping off the ref and have it done by another official. Stop the watch every time the ball is out of play and reduce the game to two halves of 30 mins. The ball is rarely in play for 60 mins anyway. No team would have any reason to time waste and free kicks, throw ins etc may not take a couple of mins each time.

Very sceptical about the blue card, mainly because most adjustments to the rules in my lifetime have either been tinkering for the sake of it, or horribly implemented.

Since 1986, only the backpass rule and the referee's spray have been good, simple ideas that have actually improved the game markedly.

They would!
They'd still have two of the same three reasons they do it now. It's not just to waste time. It's also to break up momentum - if the attacking team are building up a head of steam and the defending team rocking a little; And, continuation of that really, to help them get a breather and recover before going again, and to get defensively back into organised positions, etc. There's more to the dark arts of slow play than just time wasting, and winning teams will always see a benefit to slowing the game down rather than letting it be as fast and open as possible.

And yet VAR worked extremely well in the world cup, the highest level of football possible. Go figure?

Agreed, there are a lot of reasons to and ways to waste time, but anything that cuts this down has got to be a good thing in my eyes. One of the reasons players do it now is that they know the ref will never add on as much time as they waste. If they did, games would be lasting a couple of hours.

Which is part of its problem. Its been around for 7 years and its still absolutely fucking shite on a wider scale, especially over here, barring a month long tournament where is worked somewhat.

Perhaps VAR being here to stay can be helped by the PGMOL's absolute farcical handling of its referees, the product of VAR and its out right refusal to admit when things have gone wrong

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So in essence its not VAR as a concept but more in its application? I suspect that would/will be the same with the blue cards which immediately renders zero fan confidence in what potentially could be a good innovation. The end result is the same though, good or not, it will be exploited to the maximum by the prem teams and hated in equal measure by the fans.

I genuinely believe that most fans and media don't actually want it to get to a stage where the decision making is all 'correct' (not that that's actually possible). I think they'd view that as stale and sterile and would take away the much enjoyed debating all the decisions aspects which is a huge part of the games coverage.

I also get the sense that the law makers know that, and know that plays a big part in people's love of talking about the game and the huge media coverage it enjoys, which is why so many laws that are introduced are subjective and therefore making multiple interpretations and debate inevitable and consistency impossible.

Regardless of VAR, and how many cards thw officials have, there's just absolutely no way of getting the 'right' decision made with so many of these scenarios as there isn't a 'right' decision to many of the subjective calls. There's maybe a majority one, where you can say that's the least controversial as more people would go that way, but that'll still often leave plenty of people strongly of another valid and subjective view.

This was always why I only ever wanted technology for line decisions and nothing else. Leave all the subjective decisions to the onfield officials. They'll miss some things, and get some 'wrong' in the eyes of the majority, that'll lead to plenty of debate and disagreement. But when there's still plenty of debate and disagreement with VAR, then I don't feel you've gained enough for what you've lost.

And I'd say similar with another 'big' change like sin bins. Yes, there's some positives that have been mentioned. But there's also some negatives that have been highlighted. And at the end of the day I don't think you gain enough from the positives to justify another huge change like that.

A lot of these changes are slowing it down, and making it a lot more stop-start. That's taking away a huge plus that Football had as being a very fast paced sport. It's now getting longer, slower and stop-start similar to American Football.

Football evolves, just like all aspects of life. Some people don’t like that and prefer things to stay as they were. My parents always told me that things were better in the “old days” and I find myself saying the same to my children.

Things move on and we all have to adapt and move with them.