VAR. HUH! WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
Football found a saviour in the year 1925. At the time, the game was becoming awfully boring, defenders having sussed the contemporary offside law to such an extent that goals were at a premium and matches often degenerated into stoppage-strewn fiascos. (If you’re looking for a detailed tactical explanation of why, we’re afraid you’ve ventured quite a long way off piste.) Anyway, some bright spark tweaked the law to its present state, pretty much, and the goals started flying in once more. Attendances, which had been plummeting, began to rise again. Football was saved! Hurrah! Hurrah for progressive thinking!
But what the innovators of 1925 gave with one hand, they took away with the other. Also that year, at the Selfridge’s department store in London, inventor John Logie Baird made the first public demonstration of his new “televisor” equipment, transmitting moving silhouette images of ventriloquist dummies James and Stooky Bill. Baird’s flickering box would subsequently become a malign influence on football, eventually distorting what was once a reasonably level playing field completely out of whack, as though the horizontal hold was permanently on the blink. On Monday night, finally, inevitably, after decades of off-field meddling, its ultra-high-definition tentacles made it all the way out to the pitch, as Video Assistant Referee technology was used for the first time in a major English game. Oh Stooky Bill! How could you!
Sure enough, the new kit immediately became an ultra-high-irritation talking point. With a couple of minutes to go in the FA Cup tie between Brighton and Crystal Palace, Glenn Murray bundled home a close-range winner using his thigh, probably, or his hand, perhaps, nobody’s 100% sure having squinted at the replays from all angles a million times since. But it was good enough for boots-on-desk videotape operator Neil Swarbrick, who didn’t see the need to initiate a review, allowing on-field official Andre Marriner, reduced to the ghostly status of James the ventriloquist dummy, to signal the goal. That’ll do!
That didn’t stop Roy Hodgson blowing a tube in the old-school fashion, making some self-confessed “spiteful comments” to Marriner. Fortunately we were well past the watershed by then, and Hodgson later publicly apologised, though he did maintain that there is “still a slight suspicion that the ball might have brushed Murray’s arm”. Still, controversy was just about avoided in VAR’s first transmission, though The Fiver would suggest the equipment’s inability to – surely the whole point, this – conclusively clear up a relatively minor incident doesn’t augur well for the future. What might happen should something more contentious occur during a VAR game featuring two managers much more highly strung than Hodgson and Chris Hughton? It’s Chelsea-Arsenal on Wednesday night, isn’t it? Oh Stooky Bill!
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Dear Mauricio Pellegrino, I am writing to tell you how frustrated I am game after game after game, as we are constantly losing. Firstly, I have always wanted a season ticket, and this year I finally got one, which at first I was very excited about, but now not so much as I waste my time watching my team lose. I also want to tell you that the same thing happens every single game … in your interviews you can’t keep saying the same thing such as ‘we need to react when we concede. We know that. You need to stop saying and start doing … after reading this I would like a reply and to see an improvement. PS, if I played with the same attitude as some of these players I would be subbed. PPS, I would have written more but I got too angry” – Southampton fan Brooke Slatcher, 12, cranks the heat up on Saints’ under-fire boss.
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Football Weekly. Come get some.
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FIVER LETTERS
“Today I was asked by a work colleague, who I only see rarely, if I was the Andrew Want who had written into Fiver letters a while back. I wonder if anyone else has been equally shamed by the recognition and yet impressed to actually meet the ‘other’ reader?” – Andrew Want.
“In suggesting that Stoke had been beaten by a demoralised Coventry team largely cobbled together on the cheap from paperclips, sticky-back plastic and bits of string (yesterday’s Fiver), surely you were guilty of a glaring open-goal miss in not stating that Coventry’s back four were somewhat stationary” – Mike Wrall.
“Re: Nasty Leeds. Please might we begin a move to restore the correct descriptor for my beloved Dirty Leeds? The epithet was hard earned during the 1960s and 1970s only to be lost due to the rantings of a very small former Chelsea full-back who was unfortunately our manager during a forgettable period of our history. Dirty Leeds is fine thanks” – Vincent Denham.
“Re: Manchester City dangling £30m over the Etihad (yesterday’s News, Bits and Bobs)? Has Alexis Sánchez ever heard of playing hard to get? Is he hanging around the stadium doing keepy-uppies in front of Pep Guardiola to try and impress him?” – Gavin O’Sullivan (and 1,056 others).
“If you ignore the fact that they are four points behind Luton Town, then Notts County are indeed League Two leaders (yesterday’s Fiver)” – Philip Williams.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet The Fiver. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is … Mike Wrall.
THE RECAP
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BITS AND BOBS
Newcastle Under-23s manager Peter Beardsley has taken an “agreed period of leave” as the club investigates bullying allegations.
Alex Iwobi is set to be hit in the pocket by Arsenal after being seen cutting a rug at 2.37am in some trendy London nightspot a day before his feet failed to successfully dance past Nottingham Forest’s defence. “If that is true, he will be fined,” barked Wenger. “It is impossible to go out 48 hours before a game. It’s unacceptable.”
Almost 15 years after the NFL introduced the “Rooney Rule”, FA suits have announced they are adopting their own version in terms of appointing future England managers. “The FA wants to become a more inclusive organisation,” cheered Martin Glenn.
Tottenham have agreed to let Burnley borrow French winger Georges-Kévin Nkoudou until the end of the season because they’re nice like that.
Wolves midfielder and spy-novel-protagonist-soundalike, Jack Price, has set sail for the USA! USA!! USA!!! where he will join Colorado Rapids. “A part of me is sad to leave after so many years, but the time is right for a new challenge,” he sniffed, while waving a sodden handkerchief in Nuno’s direction.
Chile have appointed outgoing Flamengo coach Reinaldo Rueda as their new boss. “He has a sporting trajectory of a high level,” tooted a Chilean FA suit.
And perhaps after being given a sharp nudge by his people, new Barcelona signing Philippe Coutinho has spoken of his love for Liverpool. “I will always cherish Liverpool in my heart. You, the club and the city will always be a part of me,” he honked, while leafing through a list of Castelldefels dream homes.
STILL WANT MORE?
How much will Liverpool really miss Philippe Coutinho? Sean Ingle strokes his chin, crunches some stats and says “perhaps not as much as you think”.
Bristol City are buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. And not just because they’re off to the Etihad [correct – Fiver Ed] for their Littlewoods Cup semi, but because the whole club’s on the up. Ben Fisher goes behind the scenes at Ashton Gate.
After struggling at Arsenal, Asisat Oshoala has thrived in China, and been rewarded with a third African player of the year award, writes Suzanne Wrack.
PSG’s Qatar-funded dominance may make them a shoo-in for the Ligue 1 title, but just below them it’s actually getting pretty competitive. Here’s our latest Ligue 1 missive.
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