VAR Steals The Show Again In Premier League Relegation Battle

Both Burnley and Brentford are not having particularly fantastic campaigns in the 2023/24 Premier League season, but Brentford is keeping itself away from the drop zone, whereas Burnley remains cut adrift in the bottom three.

It meant that their latest encounter this weekend could have actually been quite telling given that we are now at the final nine game stage of the league campaign, and ultimately Burnley helped their own battle immensely by taking a 2-1 victory on home Turf Moor soil.

The three points going in Vincent Kompany’s direction and not Thomas Frank’s, in many ways, is actually the smallest headline to come out of the 90 minutes of the game when it comes to neutral fans, and those in the wider world of football will appreciate making successful soccer match picks should never be dominated by referee’s and decisions, but that is now more about what the game has become.

But before I get to that though, let us look at the game. It was quite a tasty encounter, with both sets of players knowing what a result would mean for them, and although Burnley did far more and created greater chances, Brentford probably did more with far less.

Brentford had a major problem, though, and that was the eighth-minute sending off of Tottenham Hotspur loanee Sergio Reguilon. The Video Assistant Referee system was involved and decided that he had committed a professional foul in the box on winger Vitinho despite the referee Darren Bond waving away their claims – ergo early penalty, a red card and Jacob Bruun Larsen got himself on the scoresheet before they doubled their advantage when Chelsea loanee David Datro Fofana added a second.

They could have had more, but finally, Brentford made one of their great chances in the game count, as Kristoffer Ajer made it a one-goal game late on in the 83rd minute. Brentford had the ball in the net again, as Shandon Baptiste’s cross looped into the net, but the goal was ruled out for an Ivan Toney foul on the Burnley keeper.

Burnley has now two home wins in 2023/24, but they remain eight points adrift of safety, with Brentford four points shy of real trouble.

The main story that will flow from the game naturally involves VAR yet again.

It took more than five full minutes for the penalty decision to be made and confirmed although VAR have naturally excused themselves for the delay by claiming the incredibly lengthy wait was due to checking the full passage of play for errors, it will do nothing to alter the general negative view that fans have of VAR.

However, for once, VAR is not the story as they got the decision right; it involves them because Sky Sports claimed that the delay was due to a monitor failure, which left the referee twiddling his thumbs until they got it working again.

Sky naturally corrected this error and admitted it was their mistake as quickly as they could, but there was your headline. Mindless speculation to fill airspace takes the conversation away from the real problems in the game and its management.

Whilst the story should have been how was the decision missed given it was a complete stonewall decision as pointed out by referee pundit Mike Dean at the point, and should not have even needed VAR to get involved (even if they took an age), this is not what the majority of people are talking about.

Let us hope that in 2024/25, we are talking about football and not the difficulties presented by VAR.

VAR Steals The Show Again In Premier League Relegation Battle