It is fair to say that the jury is still out on the Video Assistant Referee - or VAR to you and I - as the system hardly covered itself in glory on Wednesday night. Despite beating Schalke 3-2, Manchester City were left fuming by a couple of first-half decisions during their Champions League clash.
Twitter users let their feelings about the VAR system known in no uncertain terms!
The Citizens were cruising after Sergio Aguero had given them a 1-0 lead at the Veltins Arena but Schalke were 2-1 up at half-time thanks to a couple of dubious penalty decisions.
The first saw Schalke players hound the referee, Carlos del Cerro Grande, as they wanted a penalty for what they thought was a handball by Nicolas Otamendo after 33 minutes... An age seemed to pass before it was eventually decided that it was handball and five minutes later Otamendi was booked before Nabil Bentaleb finally converted the spot-kick.
It seemed harsh on Otamendi as the ball was travelling at some speed as he tried to get his arm out of the way. To rub salt into the wound, Otamendi was later sent off for a second bookable offence
The mood of Pep Guardiola and everyone connected with City wasn't helped when it was later revealed that the video footage wasn't working so the referee gave the penalty on the word of the VAR.
On 43 minutes, the referee then pointed to the spot towards a penalty after Fernandinho foolishly pulled Salif Sane in the box. Fernandinho was booked and will miss the second leg through suspension before Bentaleb scored his second of the night from the spot.
To make matters even worse, video replays showed that Sane had actually been in an offside position when the ball was played in!
Much like VAR, Twitter went into meltdown on Wednesday night...
The referee couldn’t check the pitchside screen regarding the Otamendi handball because it was faulty. He relied purely on the word of the VAR, which probably isn’t ideal for such a borderline decision [@JamesRobsonES]
VAR was meant to provide certainty, it did anything but on Wednesday...
The great and good of Twitter were swift to air their grievances, including Danny Baker...
F*%$ing dreadful, cumbersome, interfering, boring VAR again. Football's own speed camera manages to drag another match to it's knees. And they got it was WRONG too. Brilliant. *$%k VAR. [@prodnose]
Alvaro Morata was denied a goal by VAR in the night's other Champions League match as Atletico Madrid took on Juventus...
In both the games tonight the refereeing has been an embarrassment. VAR giving two penalties to Schalke that weren’t penalties and Morata getting a perfectly good goal disallowed due to a dive. #SCHMCI #ATLJUVE [@benmurray95]
City turned things around with only ten men as they scored two late goals through Leroy Sane and Raheem Sterling to secure a remarkable 3-2 win on a night of high drama in Germany.
What a shambles VAR is.
#S04MCI
