Gary Neville shares VAR theory after spotting what referee did moments after Liverpool goal ruled out

Gary Neville feels that it was “horrendous” for PGMOL to mistakenly rule that Luis Diaz’s goal against Tottenham Hotspur was offside, and he also says that this season,’something hasn’t been right’ in respect to VAR.

In the 34th minute of Saturday night’s defeat in North London, the debate reached its height.Diaz gave the Reds the lead after latching onto a through pass from Mohamed Salah and firing past Guglielmo Vicario.

It appeared that way, at least. It came less than ten minutes after Curtis Jones had been controversially removed for what officials regarded to be major foul play, which encouraged the group of travelers. However, the goal was quickly disallowed for offside, allowing Spurs to quickly grab the lead.

It had further significant effects since, with Liverpool attempting to win the game, Diogo Jota made two poor choices that led to his own dismissal in the second half, aggravating the current issues. Finally, the home team scored in the 96th minute.

Due to their own ignorance of the decision to overturn Diaz’s goal, Sky Sports was compelled to apologize. Normally, the broadcaster has access to photos that referees use to mark players as offsides with hand-drawn lines, but they weren’t available.

A “significant human error” was committed by VAR Darren England and his assistant Dan Cook in their respective duties when they failed to step in and overturn the on-field decision, proving that they did not in fact exist. The goal ought to have stood because PGMOL issued an apology for this.

Presenter Kelly Cates read this to analysts Jamie Redknapp, a former Liverpool midfielder, and Neville because it was released while Sky was still broadcasting live.

“No, no. Neville reacted in shock, “Kelly, seriously.” Yes, yes. That’s exactly what has occurred, Cates said.

The ex-Manchester United full-back continued: “No, no. At the time I thought we get VAR up on the commentary box before anybody else does and I thought ‘that’s onside’. Then all of a sudden you just hear in you ear [the goal has been ruled out].

“We get the pictures up in the gantry – the commentary from VAR officials to the referee – and you get ‘check complete’. You’re like, ‘what?’ No lines. It was too quick and something was obviously wrong.

“That is unbelievable. That is a bad one. A really, really [bad mistake]. That is very significant –

At this point Redknapp cut in, querying: “It makes you wonder how many others [decisions VAR officials have got wrong].”

“Oh I know,” Neville agreed. “The last few weeks I just thought haven’t been right and I’ve been asking have we got the right cameras at these stadiums? We never seem to be in line anymore. We’ve always been in line.

“We have the lines on the pitch. By the way, these groundsmen have laser, pinpoint accuracy. They never get a line wrong. When you look at the lines on the pitch, they’re so accurate.

“I’ve defended VAR and offsides as being a matter of fact, but there’s been two or three in the last few weeks where I thought behind the scenes that hasn’t felt right – the angle’s aren’t right, have they drawn the lines on [correctly?]

“It was all too quick, it wasn’t right. At the time I was like ‘right then, we’ll move on’, and I actually went down to the director who said they’ll have definitely drawn the lines on at Stockley Park. I went ‘how can they have done? It was too quick? Have they drawn the lines on?’

“We obviously know the explanation of how they’ve got it wrong –

Again, Redknapp interjected: “And it doesn’t make you feel any better if you’re the Liverpool manager – how do you feel about that? That’s a horrendous error.”

“That is a horrendous one because I can see by times you might have loads of players in the way, they might have drawn it on the wrong shoulder, that is clearly Romero’s foot and clearly Diaz’s shoulder. It is clear to everybody,” Neville agreed with his co-pundit for the second time.

“There’s only two players, loads of space, it’s not like there’s a collection of players in line but I still keep saying over these last few weeks something hasn’t been right. We always used to have cameras in line with every point in the stadium and it’s almost as if now there are no cameras in line.

“What are they doing? They’re picking the wrong cameras to even do the lines on. It’s just weird. I’ve said the same thing, they’re picking the wrong cameras to actually put the lines on. Something doesn’t feel right.”

After seeing Dale Johnson’s explanation of how the officials came to the decision, Neville would later add on Twitter: “I’m pretty sure if you look at the refs face they were thinking of taking the game back and say it was a goal. There is a moment where the ref looks sick! On the gantry ( you can’t see this at home ) the VAR screen was locked on the offside decision whilst the game went on. They knew pretty much straight away but for some reason didn’t go back or can’t through rules go back!!”

TV images moments after Spurs took their free-kick showed referee Hooper appearing to listen to his earpiece and lifting his whistle towards his mouth, before hesitating and allowing play to continue.