In defence of VAR: Early hiccups shouldn't discourage use of technology

The crowd at Anfield, raucous at the start of Saturday's FA Cup tie thanks to Roberto Firmino's early opener, whistled and groaned as referee Craig Pawson held his hand to his ear. After a conversation with the Video Assistant Referee (VAR), located some 300 kilometres away, Pawson scurried to a nearby monitor to determine whether Jake Livermore had pulled down Mohamed Salah in the area. Denied a replay on the big screens, supporters inside the stadium had no clue what was happening.

Minutes later, the penalty was rightfully awarded. Firmino made a mess of the subsequent spot-kick, hitting the crossbar, but the right call was made. In a sport where outrage over the state of officiating has reached a fever pitch, it reinforced why VAR is good for the game.

Fans aggrieved with the time it took to arrive at the decision have a point. An exhausting four minutes elapsed between the moment of contact and Firmino's penalty. Another three minutes were needed for VAR to review two other first-half incidents.

But each of the calls proved to be correct. Liverpool supporters could have no complaints that Pawson or anyone else had cost them the match. There were no alibis on this night, no way to blame a 3-2 defeat to lowly West Bromwich Albion on anything but bad defending and poor overall effort.

Related: West Brom stuns Liverpool in VAR-laced FA Cup tie

If anything, the West Brom players were the ones who felt let down. Pawson disallowed Craig Dawson's header for offside and awarded the penalty against the Baggies not long afterward.

In other words, VAR worked.

"That's what we always wanted," Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp told reporters. "If a goal should be disallowed, it should be disallowed. Usually in this situation, we talk about it and I have to explain a defeat which was maybe not deserved because we didn't get a penalty and they scored another goal."

Introduced to England's cup competitions this year, VAR was always going to try supporters' patience. The stop-and-start nature of the technology was always going to clash with the general fluidity of football. It's never been easy to promote change in this sport, where tradition has long reigned supreme.

But Serie A, one of the early adopters of VAR, has evidence that the growing pains will fade away. The time taken to make a decision has dropped from a minute and 22 seconds to a much more acceptable average of 29 seconds, according to numbers compiled by Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. More than 1,000 checks were made in the first 210 matches of the season. Only one percent of the calls were wrong.

The difference is that each Serie A stadium has a specific VAR room. In England, all reviews occur in the Premier League Production's headquarters near Heathrow airport. The sense of detachment could increase the margin of error, and may have added to VAR's early struggles in the cups.

It's also apparent that there's a disconnect between the officials and coaches. Pardew said afterward Pawson failed to communicate to him or his staff when or why they decided to use VAR. That can't happen. No one should be left in the dark, not even the fans.

Nor should anyone be left injured as a result. Pardew claimed that Kieran Gibbs and Hal Robson-Kanu both suffered hamstring issues in the first half "because they were standing around for too long." Robson-Kanu pantomimed the rectangular VAR motion to indicate that it had played a part in his injury.

Most important, however, is that VAR is only used when there are clear and obvious mistakes in match-changing situations. Every goal cannot be reviewed because the technology is there. It must be warranted.

All of that can and most likely will be addressed. But what cannot be lost is that, beyond all of these unintended consequences, VAR prevented Saturday's contest from producing an unfair scoreline. That's the objective, and it was achieved.

(Photos courtesy: Getty Images)