Wolverhampton player rants against VAR over its alleged ignorance over Virgil Van Dijk’s handball before Sadio Mane scored the lone goal.
Liverpool’s win against Wolverhampton was once again blotted by two VAR controversies and the players from the latter team were furious to see their team being on the receiving end.
One of the prominent incidents in the game, which VAR did not bother to check was Virgil Van Dijk’s alleged handball on the ball before Sadio Mane scored the only goal in the game.
Sky Sports claimed VAR checked the replay of the alleged handball and said the ‘evidence is inconclusive’. Wolves were understandably incensed during the match and their captain Conor Coady spoke passionately about VAR during a post-match interview on Sky Sports.
Asked if he and his teammates felt hard done by, Coady began: “Massively. It’s constantly happening, it’s ridiculous.”
“People talk about VAR but they don’t ask us about the situation. For me, it’s not working. Some people are saying it gets the right decision but we’re the players on the pitch and it doesn’t feel good, believe me.
Coady then provided some fascinating insight about what it’s like to play a match where VAR is in use – and it sounds even more confusing than watching it on TV.
“Anthony Taylor [the referee] is a great fella to speak to but I ask a question and I don’t get an answer,” Coady continued.
“We thought Van Dijk handballed it in the lead up to the goal, but the referee tells me Van Dijk is too far away. I can’t get my head around it. Van Dijk played the pass for the goal.
“It’s affecting the game. The crowd are singing it, the crowd don’t like it, no one likes it. No one has asked the players about it.
“They did a presentation at the start of the season and told us what was going to happen but it’s still confusing, you still can’t get your head around it – you don’t get answers on the pitch, they don’t tell you ‘right we’re checking for a penalty, we’re checking for handball, we’re checking for offside’… Okay, so who’s offside? ‘We don’t know’. Okay, so how far offside? ‘We don’t know – we don’t get told’.” he concluded.
Watch full interview
https://twitter.com/GMS__Football/status/1211362087815012353?s=20
In the other instance, Pedro Neto was denied the equalizer by VAR, as Jonny Castro was slightly offside by the toe, which further fuelled the controversy over VAR.
