- Mikel Arteta faced criticism for his scathing response to VAR decisions last week
- The truth is VAR has turned out to be the technology from hell for these referees
- DOMINIC KING: I don’t understand what football is anymore – It’s All Coming Up
I can tell you from my own experience as a manager that the media always want to catch you in your moment of greatest weakness, straight after a match.
They want you to walk up the tunnel and straight into your press conference, to get your thoughts the minute a game has finished. Not an hour afterwards, when you’ve had time to get your head straight and think what you’re going to say.
Many was the time, as a manager, that I’d sit in the dressing room and think, ‘I’m not going to go there in the press conference. I’m not going to say what I actually think’. But you still end up coming out of that encounter with the media thinking, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have said that’. They know which buttons to press. That’s clever journalism for you.
So I have to say I had sympathy with Mikel Arteta over his reaction to a flagrantly poor refereeing decision last weekend. I’ve been in his shoes. The conclusion that Anthony Gordon’s goal for Newcastle should stand was plainly wrong to anyone with an ounce of knowledge of the game. And of course, Mikel was having to come to terms with the fact that those officials were equipped with the most sophisticated video technology known to man.
You have to ask yourself how hard it must have been for him when he walked into his press conference, given that he had half an hour to calm down — yet still went for the officials and their decision-making in a big way. I can well imagine how he felt. I would have been boiling.
It’s all very well for people to say, ‘Arteta’s let his great club down because they have a reputation for class’ but I don’t see it like that. Yes, for me Arsenal have always been one of the classiest clubs. But I saw Arteta (right) as a man whose frustrations were so enormous that he just couldn’t deal with it in the cold, calculated way that all the experts seem to think he should have done.
Those criticising him do not seem to have considered the bewildering rationale that lay behind allowing that goal to stand. Please answer me the most significant question, which no one appeared to ask last weekend. Why did Gabriel, a big, strong 6ft 3in centre back, not put his head on a ball, a yard off his goal line when it was there at a perfect height for him?
For one very obvious reason. Because he was pushed. It was as plain as the nose on your face and would have been pure common sense to anyone who’s actually played the game. But, of course, these so-called ‘video officials’ haven’t. They don’t know how to interpret the replays they are watching.
How many times do we have to say that this refereeing shambles must be resolved by getting ex-players in, to help? Ultimately, I suspect self-preservation will force them to do so, because referees are slowly putting themselves out of business.
If they don’t see the writing on the wall, they are all going to be looking for a new job shortly, because the level of flak they are taking on a weekly basis for ridiculously poor calls is killing the PGMOL.
That grandly-titled organisation, run by people who seem to have a very high opinion of themselves, is very quickly going to be in survival mode — if it’s not there already. I read last week about referee Anthony Taylor making a mess of running Newcastle’s game at Wolves and then being demoted to the Championship, to referee Preston’s match against Coventry City.
So, you’re now telling me that it doesn’t matter having an inferior referee in the divisions below the Premier League? What planet are these people operating on?
A referee should be nowhere near a football match for while — Championship, League One, or League Two for that matter — if he has shown himself to be incompetent.
The uncomfortable truth is that VAR has turned out to be the technology from hell for these referees. It was supposed to make their life more comfortable, with fewer mistakes. It’s turned out to be the exact opposite.
The question the refereeing establishment need to be asking themselves is: ‘How do we improve?’ They can go and have their seminars and their get-togethers every day of the week, but they’re still going to continue to make the same mistakes unless they involve people who intuitively understand the game. The ones who’ve actually played it.
The noise and controversy surrounding Arsenal last weekend is not something you want, as a manager. I love passion and I was passionate, both as a player and a manager, but I think Mikel would be wise to temper things a wee bit. If I were advising him I would say: ‘Remain as passionate as you are — but behind closed doors.’
If he’s going to be sensitive to every decision, it will give lesser players a crutch to lean on. You have to keep that fire, that frustration, that passion, in your dressing room because, given the scrutiny of the media today, Mikel is being subjected to ridicule at times.
Of course, it’s not so easy to put that theory into practice, as a manager, in the heat of competition. Someone, somewhere, will be on the receiving end of more incompetence this weekend because of a VAR system which was invented to make life easier for referees and has merely exposed how little they really understand the game.
Disappointment in Dortmund for Newcastle
It was a disappointing result for Newcastle at Borussia Dortmund. People say European competition is a different type of football, though I don’t think that’s true.
All of this is new to nearly all of that Newcastle squad — the emotions, the travelling, the expectation levels going through the roof. Maybe some of them are feeling that.
It’s a bit of an unknown because they haven’t played against these guys before or played in these stadiums before. The mixed results are part and parcel of a journey that club is on.
Chelsea need a lethal finisher
I view Chelsea as a good team in the making under Mauricio Pochettino but despite their win at Tottenham I still think they’re missing the most important ingredient. A goalscorer.
Chelsea sell Timo Werner. They sell Romelu Lukaku. They bring in Nicolas Jackson, who may be a star in the future, and have Christopher Nkunku on the way back next month. But they need a hell of a lot more than that.
Strikers are the ones who enable you to win games when you don’t play well. The Liverpool team in my last year at Anfield — 1984 — was maybe not as fabulous as the previous one but we won three trophies for one very good reason: Ian Rush’s 47 goals.
At Liverpool they would say, ‘You lot are just hod-carriers for those guys because they’re the ones who put the ball in the net’. It’s as true now as ever. It’s also why I think Liverpool are a far stronger team than Chelsea, despite spending a fraction of the money. They have great goalscoring options.
My name’s Graeme, let’s hug!
I was surprised to see Erling Haaland giving his shirt to the Young Boys captain at half-time during their Champions League game. I certainly never gave or received a shirt when a game was half-finished but it’s the way things seem to be now. It’s a bit like everyone hugging everyone else these days. Everyone’s a hugger — myself included!
I seem to hug everyone I meet. ‘My name’s Graeme. Let’s hug.’
Haaland was reluctant to give away his shirt but it didn’t affect that match. It was men and against boys in every way on Wednesday night.
Olivia Martin is a dedicated sports journalist based in the UK. With a passion for various athletic disciplines, she covers everything from major league championships to local sports events, delivering up-to-the-minute updates and in-depth analysis.
