Up the VAR!

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The Mag

·25. Januar 2025

Up the VAR!

On Saturday afternoon at St Mary’s, VAR was once again centre stage.

Southampton against Newcastle United in a 3pm kick-off.

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Once again, reading/hearing Newcastle supporters saying how sick they are of VAR and wish we could get rid of it etc etc.

I find this very bizarre, considering what we all saw happen in this win over Southampton.

Newcastle United definitely deserved to win but things could have potentially gone badly wrong if small margins had gone the way of the visitors, especially without VAR…

I totally get the frustration with how long delays can be at times BUT that is a completely different debate for me, as opposed to whether we have VAR at all.

Does anybody really want to go back to a time when you had countless wrong decisions in pretty much every Premier League match, often decisive in the final result. Do we really want to go back to freedom for cheats to win key decisions, penalties and red cards etc, when if watching at home you can clearly see the injustice?

There are still times where mistakes are made even with the use of VAR but the reality is that they just stand out more due to the fact there is far less of them than pre-VAR. Fans kid themselves and have such short memories as to how bad it was before, there was back in the day just an acceptance that so many key wrong decisions were made, due to the fact that match officials couldn’t see what everybody was watching on TV…

In this Southampton match, Newcastle United went a goal down on 10 minutes.

United then sorting themselves out and getting back on top.

A clever Isak run saw him clearly hacked down from behind by Aribo, yet amazingly the referee on the pitch not giving it.

A VAR check then announced on ‘whether’ Isak had indeed been hacked down.

It took a strangely long time but eventually the correct decision made, VAR telling the referee to go and watch the TV replay so he could correct his blatant mistake.

There are no guarantees and if the penalty hadn’t been given thanks to VAR, who knows what would have happened?

Isak coolly stroked the penalty home and only four minutes later the turn around was complete, a class assist from Murphy, matched by the striker’s finish.

Without VAR, you could easily have seen a situation of Southampton clinging on to that 1-0 lead at the break, then…?

We then move on to the closing stages.

Another lengthy VAR check BUT the right outcome in the end!

A long ball played through and Fernandes finishing past Dubravka, goal given.

A very tricky ten minutes (including added time) for United to see out what was now a 3-2 lead.

However, once more, VAR doing what it is there for, the Southampton player offside and no touch by Schar. A far more pleasurable final ten minutes seen out, with the score 3-1, than if just a one goal margin.

VAR and Newcastle United were the winners on Saturday afternoon.

VAR has to be here to stay, this win over Southampton proves that.

It needs to be improved in terms of how the Premier League use it, especially the length of time on certain decisions, however, we can’t go back to cheats prospering and key wrong decisions every match.

Southampton 1 Newcastle 3 – Saturday 25 January 2025 3pm

Goals:

Newcastle United:

Isak 26 pen, 30 Tonali 51

Southampton:

Bednarek 10

Possession was Newcastle 47% (48%) Southampton53% (52%)

Total shots were Newcastle 17 (7) Southampton 12 (4)

Shots on target were Newcastle 9 (5) Southampton 5 (2)

Corners were Newcastle 8 (5) Southampton 3 (0)

Touches in the box Newcastle 34 (18) Southampton 15 (3)

Newcastle team v Southampton: