Honest Mistakes – Weeks 24 and 25

Comments

1. Damian says

   10th February 2023 at 13:41

   Interesting piece as always. It seems the refs are generally making the right calls recently according to the YW?

   I was listening to the live Radio Scotland coverage of the Hearts Rangers game. Certainly the in-studio pundits had the Kent dive down as such from the first second.

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   • Damian says

     10th February 2023 at 16:40

     Interesting to see what the xPts impact would be since the introduction of VAR? That’s 11 or 12 rounds of fixtures? Obviously I have some misgivings in this area and there are at least a couple of Celtic games I can think of since the introduction of VAR where I personally think there were instances (potentially in favour of Celtic’s opponents on the day) which were not referred to the YW. But, such as it is, and just from reading these reports as they come in, the YW assessment would seem to be that VAR is working pretty well, or at least making a positive impact on the standards of referees decisions, in the Scottish top flight? Might be more interesting still if you were to look at, say, the period before and since the World Cup – allowing the former to be seen as a teething period (and where most of the absolute clangers appear to have been concentrated)?

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     • Damian says

       16th February 2023 at 19:13

       I eventually got interested enough to look back through your reports from the ‘Dawn of VAR’ onwards. I’m not sure that all rounds of fixtures have been referred to and/or fed back on by the YW, so that plus any particular instances not referred in the games covered might make the running totals a bit pinch-of-salt. But, such as it is, it’s:

       CFC -2.67
       RFC +1.33

       …in that time.

       As I suspected, the overwhelming majority of this happened prior to the World Cup (if it’s acceptable to consider the pre-WC VAR period as having teething problems). Only two (I think) instances which made any impact after that time. I’ve discounted the League Cup quarter finals article, where both
       CFC and RFC apparently benefited from poor decisions.

       Since the WC, the YW appears to be of the view that the instances referred to him have been handled well by the officials.

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2. Martin says

   17th February 2023 at 09:18

   Only 3 comments! Suggests we all agree with the YW here. I certainly do- I’m not sure any of the incidents referred were particularly controversial, but then that’s good. We don’t want to exist in a bubble of publication bias- we need to see where the refs are right as well.

   Like Damian, I do feel that since the WC break most big calls have either been right OR fixed in VAR. The Partick Thistle vs Rangers cup game being the only outlier in that I’ve seen, where I feel both penalties were wrong (handball was of the “soft/unfortunate” variety, Tillman foul was clearly outside the box).

   And, crucially, that’s a good thing. We want a fair game where quality decides things, not officialdom.

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3. The Cha says

   19th February 2023 at 13:07

   Re Celtic’s first goal, I assume he means Hatate standing in an offside position rather than The Kyogo 🙂

   The latter was, of course, fed by Mooy and who’s cross, meant for Hatate, was diverted into the net by Considine.

   If I’m reading it correctly then YW is saying that if Hatate had scored then it should have been ruled out for offside.

   I’m probably confusing myself but I thought this was why players stood in an offside but inactive position as, as long as they’re onside when the ball is played to them ie active, then the goal would stand.

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