VAR league table: Which club has been wronged most – and who has benefited
“That’s wrong that, Daz” could be the words engraved on the tombstone of VAR, offering a reminder that football technology needed competent humans running the system and that every decision had a winner and a loser.
Liverpool were the unlucky ones in the case of Daz, aka Darren England, the video-assistant referee who checked the footage after Simon Hooper incorrectly disallowed Luis Diaz’s goal at Tottenham. “Oh f---” was England’s reaction when he realised he had blundered by not reversing the decision.
Similar expletives have come out of the mouths of managers, players, fans and chairmen when the VAR decisions go against them. The statistics show some have fared better from VAR than others when looking at overturns leading to goals for or against, the number of VAR decisions in favour and how many went against teams.
Aston Villa can hold claim to being the team that had the most VAR decisions go in their favour. Unai Emery’s team were beneficiaries of the video-assistant 11 times, ahead of Chelsea (8) and Everton (7).
Wolves, who proposed the scrapping of VAR, had the least amount of decisions go their way this season – just the single incident. Seven incidents have gone against them which is the second most in the Premier League.
Such was Gary O’Neil’s anger after the decision against West Ham, he was charged by the Football Association for “improper and/or threatening” behaviour. He described it as “possibly the worst decision I have ever seen”.
At the other end of the scale, Manchester City have had the least amount of VAR decisions go against them, although they had the second-least amount go in their favour. Basically, not many of their decisions get referred to VAR.
A “net score” can be calculated, balancing out the decisions for and against leading to a goal scored or conceded, with Wolves who have come out the worst (-6) while Fulham finished top (+5).
The VAR ruling out for offside also chalked off one of the greatest FA Cup stories when Coventry’s last-gasp “goal” against Manchester United was ruled out. They had come from 3-0 down and Victor Torp had the ball in the net again only for the goal to be ruled out.
Mark Robins, the Coventry manager, said it could only have been a toenail offside, and scrapping VAR would see an end to those decisions where millimetres – and the footage itself – makes the difference.
