Richard Keys wants Mike Riley to quit PGMOL after West Brom VAR farce
Richard Keys wants Mike Riley to quit his role at the PGMOL as yet more VAR controversy marred West Brom’s win over Southampton.
It has been a rough week for VAR but the latest controversy is arguably the biggest farce since it’s inception when Mbaye Diagne’s goal wasn’t allowed in the opening stages of Albion’s 3-0 win on Monday at The Hawthorns.
Diagne headed the ball past Fraser Forster and was initially flagged as being offside. Despite VAR replays showing that the Senegal striker was onside and it was in fact Kyle Bartley was offside, the decision was not overturned due to VAR being able to draw lines on where Diagne’s body was.
Ex-Sky Sports presenter Keys took to Twitter to unleash his fury at PGMOL general manager Riley, claiming that he needs to walk away from his role and take VAR with him.
“What a shambles,” said Keys at the start of his rant.
“VAR has added nothing. Mike Riley and his apologists have delivered nothing.
“Please – give us our game back.
“Riley MUST go.
“VAR was worth looking at – but it doesn’t work. It can’t deliver ‘perfection’.
“Enough of the excuses. Junk it.”
We’re not even demanding perfection
VAR has good and bad things about it – but largely bad things.
We feel as though it was introduced to the Premier League under false pretences. We all thought that referees would start to get far more decisions right but instead, we’ve been treated to a farce of inconsistency, geometry, television camera angles and even more debate and confusion than before.
How is this better than not having VAR?
Diagne’s goal was incorrectly flagged for being offside. We can accept that now as we won 3-0 and we could have also kind of accepted it if VAR wasn’t around because it was a tight call. Bartley’s role in the attack didn’t help the linesman, neither do those damned barcode shirts.
And while we can accept that VAR couldn’t reasonably draw lines on Diagne to conclude whether or not he was offside – you can see with the naked eye that he’s onside.
We’re not demanding perfection – we’re demanding that referees use their common sense.
Kevin Friend didn’t have to draw lines on Diagne to see that he wasn’t past the Southampton defender.
It’s actually baffling how it wasn’t awarded as a goal but luckily, we won the game.
If we didn’t, the outrage would have been on a whole other level.
In other West Brom news, Don Goodman slammed one “clumsy” Albion player in the win over the Saints.
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