Kevin Pullein: Premier League should follow their own rules on VAR

VAR has been bad for football but worse than it needed to be in the Premier League. They have ignored the rules that say a referee’s decision should be overturned only if it was clearly and obviously wrong. This applies to all decisions, including offside, as the International Football Association Board, who make the rules, have pointed out.

I do not criticise the VARs. They have been told what to do, and would be marked down if they did not. But what the Premier League have done potentially has a serious consequence.

You watch a game of football. Think about that word watch. If goals are being disallowed because of things you cannot see, what is the point in watching?

Spectators, in the ground or at home, are kept waiting for ages while VAR investigates a possible offence nobody had noticed or complained about, and if VAR does overrule the referee then everyone is shown a supposedly ‘definitive’ video clip, after which they still cannot understand why the goal has been disallowed.

Perhaps some people leave a ground or switch off their TVs not knowing what the score was. Certainly other people do know what the score was, but do not know why it was what it was. For a spectator sport this ought to be worrying.

Kevin Pullein's best bet of the day

Tranmere most corners taken
0.5pt 7-4 Sky Bet

Back Tranmere to take most corners in the Sky Bet League One game at Southend. They seem about as likely as Southend to score most goals and arguably should be considered almost as likely to take most corners, in which case the 7-4 Sky Bet offer about that possibility would be a bit too big.

Usually, as I may have mentioned before, these markets are inter-connected. Each attack puts a team in a position where they have the potential to do various things, including score (which is what they want to do) but among the other things is force a corner. A corner can lead to a goal, of course. So prospects in these markets tend to rise or fall together.

Southend may be improving under Sol Campbell, who became manager in October. They lost only one of their last four matches, but they drew the other three. They are still in a horrible position – two places and 15 points below the relegation line.

Tranmere are one place below the relegation line, but with a game in hand and only three points behind the teams above it, though with a worse goal difference.

It seems reasonable to suggest that right now Tranmere are a better team than Southend. In this match, though, Southend will benefit from playing in their own stadium at Roots Hall. The result-related markets imply that a home win is roughly as likely as an away win, which sounds about right.

In EFL games with similar result expectations fair odds about the away team taking most corners would typically be about 6-4.

Tranmere have risen far and fast under Micky Mellon. He became manager in October 2016. They won the National League playoffs in 2018 and the League Two playoffs in 2019. During that time they consistently gained a smaller share of corners than other teams who have scored and conceded similar numbers of goals. But this season the relationship has been normal.

Even if I am right there is not a large edge on this bet, but I do think the chance of Tranmere taking most corners at Southend may be at least a little bit better than 7-4.

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