VAR has made football worse. It's time to get rid of it.
Between VAR and poor refereeing, football is slowly but surely being ruined. The technology was supposed to improve decision-making, but instead it's made the game more contentious than ever. We've got more cameras, more officials reviewing incidents and more technology available, yet we're still seeing decisions that are almost impossible to understand.
Take Liverpool's defeat against Arsenal on Sunday. Jurriën Timber clearly pulled Alexander Isak's shirt as the striker attempted to get on the end of a cross. No penalty was awarded, and VAR Stuart Attwell decided there wasn't enough in the incident to overturn the referee's decision.
Without VAR, I could have forgiven Andy Madley for missing it. He's watching the game in real time, from one angle, with players moving around him. Timber might have been clever enough to keep the pull out of his line of sight. Referees have always missed things, and it's impossible for them to see everything.
But that's precisely why VAR was introduced. When you've got all those cameras showing a defender pulling a striker's shirt and the officials still decide there's no penalty, what exactly is the point?
The argument afterwards was that Isak should have gone down. But why should he? A player running past an opponent who gets pulled back by his shirt will usually win a free-kick and see the defender booked. Nobody expects him to throw himself to the ground. Yet because Isak stayed on his feet, he was effectively punished for it. Had he gone down theatrically, he'd probably have been accused of diving. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Jamie Carragher and Ian Wright both believed Liverpool should have had a penalty. Not everybody agreed, which brings us back to the problem. We've spent years introducing technology to remove these arguments, and we're still having them every weekend.
It's hardly the first time Liverpool have been on the wrong end of one. Jérémy Doku's challenge on Alexis Mac Allister against Manchester City in March 2024 still springs to mind. Doku played the ball, but his follow-through caught Mac Allister high in the chest with his studs. It looked like something out of The Karate Kid. No penalty, and VAR decided not to intervene.
Supporters are understandably fed up. A Football Supporters' Association survey earlier this year found that 75.7% of almost 8,000 respondents opposed VAR, while more than 90% believed it had damaged the spontaneity of goal celebrations.
And that's the biggest problem of all. Football isn't spontaneous anymore. You score a goal and instead of celebrating properly, you're immediately thinking about whether VAR is going to find something wrong with it. Sometimes you're waiting three, four or even five minutes for a decision.
Supporters of VAR will argue that it corrects more mistakes than referees would manage without it. That's a fair argument. But getting more decisions right doesn't automatically mean you've made football better. There's more to the game than statistical accuracy, particularly when the technology still produces decisions that cause so much controversy.
I'd get rid of VAR for subjective refereeing decisions altogether. Keep the offside technology and goal-line technology, because I believe those have improved the game. Let the referee make the other decisions, and accept that occasionally he'll get something wrong.
If removing VAR isn't going to happen, then the whole system needs overhauling. I'd like to see experienced former players involved in the decision-making process, people who understand what happens on a football pitch. But my preference is to scrap it.
I'd accept more mistakes from referees if it meant getting back the football experience we had before VAR. One hundred per cent.
Where does Dominik Szoboszlai fit into Liverpool's best eleven?
A few weeks ago, Dominik Szoboszlai would have been in most people's strongest Liverpool eleven. Now I'm struggling to see where he fits in at all.
Trey Nyoni has come into midfield and made one of those central positions his own. I'd have Alexis Mac Allister alongside him, because I think he's a much better central midfielder than Szoboszlai.
That leaves the attacking midfield role, where people have been arguing that Szoboszlai should play instead of Florian Wirtz. But even though Wirtz needs to be doing so much more than he currently is, I'd still rather have him in that position. He offers more on the ball, particularly in the tighter areas where a number ten needs to find little passes and open up defences.
That's something I don't see enough of from Szoboszlai. He's got a good shot, he can run all day and he can whip a decent ball into the box, but his passing is too often sideways or backwards. For somebody playing in an attacking midfield role, I expect more creativity and more quality in possession.
I previously thought right-back might be a good position for him. Getting him into that right channel, where he could deliver crosses for Isak, seemed a reasonable option. But Ronald Araújo has come in and done a good job there, and I'd much rather have him playing in that position.
So where does Szoboszlai actually play?
The obvious counterargument is that he was Liverpool's best player last season. I agree with that. He was. But Liverpool didn't have a particularly good season, and most of the team were well below their usual standards. Being the best player in a disappointing side doesn't automatically make you indispensable.
There's also his attitude, which has increasingly frustrated me. Following Liverpool's 4-0 defeat against Manchester City in the FA Cup, he was involved in an exchange with supporters that was widely interpreted as sarcastic applause. He subsequently described it as a misunderstanding.
Then there was the Instagram photograph I remember of him showing off an expensive watch. I know footballers earn extraordinary amounts of money, but I don't particularly want to see somebody being spoken about as a future Liverpool captain showing off how wealthy he is. That's not what I associate with Liverpool.
To me, his behaviour at times comes across as arrogant, and I don't think his performances justify that attitude. You'd think he was playing like Zinedine Zidane every week.
If he were producing eight-out-of-ten performances consistently, some of those things would still annoy me, but I'd be more willing to overlook them. He's nowhere near that level in my opinion.
I also don't believe he'd be particularly happy accepting a squad role. That's my impression of his personality, rather than something I can know for certain, but it's another reason I'd consider selling him.
He's been talked about as a future Liverpool captain. I couldn't see myself being happy with that appointment. His ego, in my opinion, is a long way ahead of his ability.
Manchester City's success and the fruits of a poisoned tree
An increasing number of English football executives are pushing for the Premier League to investigate Manchester City's finances beyond 2018, according to a report by Miguel Delaney in The Independent this week.
The calls follow September's independent commission verdict, which found City guilty of serious financial rule breaches covering the 2009-10 to 2017-18 seasons. The commission found that the club had used sham commercial agreements to inflate revenue and conceal the true state of its finances.
City have appealed the findings, maintaining their innocence and arguing that the commission's decision contains serious errors. The sanctions process also remains unresolved.
The question now being raised by executives at other clubs is whether the financial arrangements identified by the commission actually ended in 2018. Some are pushing for further investigation, while others are concerned that another lengthy legal process could prolong the uncertainty surrounding English football.
I believe the Premier League should investigate. Even if Manchester City have done everything by the book since 2018, which I personally doubt, that doesn't mean the advantages established during the earlier period simply disappeared.
Players such as Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva remained at the club beyond 2018. The squad, the infrastructure and the success that followed didn't suddenly start from scratch.
It's a phrase Simon Jordan likes to use: the fruits of a poisoned tree.
And that's exactly how I view Manchester City's success since 2018. Even if no further wrongdoing is established, I believe those titles are tainted by the financial advantages that came before them.