jeffk said:
Pickford won't face a retroactive suspension for his challenge on VVD. I think he should - it was reckless and dangerous, which is pretty much what red cards are supposed to punish. That said, I'm more upset with the fact that the league is basically covering up for the game officials and the VAR official who missed a pretty obvious foul in-game. Also, the team was told early the incident wasn't reviewed during the game as VAR had been focusing on the offside call, but now we're being told that yes, VAR reviewed Pickford's tackle in-game and decided not to card him (ridiculous and probably also a lie). Anyway, I don't care if Pickford misses time, that doesn't really affect me or Liverpool one way or another, it just sucks that the league is choosing to back an obvious error instead of enforcing rules designed to keep players safe.
I can somewhat understand why the VAR official didn't give a red card, especially if the match official saw the challenge and chose to take no action. The in-game and post-game reaction of pretty much the entire soccer media saying it was a red card challenge is, once again, drawing scrutiny to how poor EPL officiating has been for the last few years.
I'm more perplexed by the off-side call. They showed the image the VAR was looking at during the game. There was no way that was off-side, and the ref made the decision very quickly. Last season, when the super tight off-side decisions were made, they would show a close up image of what lead to the ref's decision. Maybe that policy has changed this year to try to draw attention away from the way the decisions were made.
