If your team scores a goal in the Premier League but then it goes to VAR, don’t get your hopes up. So far this season 80% of VAR goals decisions have resulted in a goal being disallowed.
Ten teams have had goals disallowed, while only four have had them confirmed, and only one team (Aston Villa) have been on the end of both decisions. The table below shows the ‘balance’ for each team: the number of goals they have had confirmed by VAR minus the number of goals they have had disallowed. Liverpool fans will feel they have the most to complain about since they have a balance of -5 goals (five disallowed and none confirmed), well ahead of Aston Villa and Man Utd.
But spare a thought for Burnley, they have only scored four goals all season with one disallowed goal. This means that 20% of the time they score a goal it is disallowed. Free scoring clubs like Liverpool can probably get away with a few grumbles about VAR and still take the points, but for clubs struggling to find the back of the net this can seem much worse.
Of the other clubs, fans of Arsenal, Chelsea and Brighton should consider themselves the lucky ones, having had a goal confirmed by VAR. Brighton in particular probably love VAR as it has disallowed three goals against them, the most of any team.
Referees are right most of the time
Another question to ask from the data, is what does it tell us about referees? If you imagine that all goals are allowed to stand and then checked retrospectively, there would have been 314 goals scored so far this season and 17 disallowed. This gives an ‘error rate’ among referees of 5.8%.
Considering how the faster pace of the game makes it more difficult to referee (players have always been dishonest so the current gamesmanship is nothing new), then the fact that referees get goals right 94% of the time is a good result.
They are only human and nine out of ten is not a bad record for anyone.
Source: This data came from Opta, through a BBC Sport story https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55160134
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