Wilson I believe is amongst those that hates us, and you can read it in here, although also a few fair questions points (other than of course the last paragraph):
VAR, it turns out, far from being some neutral all-seeing eye, a benevolent Big Brother visiting justice upon the world, has plunged the game into epistemological crisis. What is handball? If players can move up to 15cm between frames, how can offsides be given to an accuracy of millimetre? What is “clear and obvious” and could something be obvious but not clear? What level of error are we prepared to accept so claims of accuracy don’t make us uncomfortable? And is it really right that there’s strict liability for a ball brushing a player’s arm but not for one player barging another in the back?
But the disallowing of Gabriel Jesus’s apparent winner was more than just another VAR call; it was a decision locked in such regress of ironies it felt like football was almost wilfully exercising its mischievous streak. Aymeric Laporte did handle the ball and as the law now stands, any contact with the arm in the buildup to a goal is an offence. By the law, the decision was correct, just as it was correct that Leander Dendoncker’s goal against Leicester last week was ruled out.
But minds inevitably go back to that quarter-final last year and the vital goal Fernando Llorente scored for Spurs via a deflection off his arm. Under the law as it now stands, that would have been ruled out. Raheem Sterling, of course, then had an injury-time goal ruled out for offside; had VAR been operational the previous season, the goal City had chalked off for offside shortly before half-time in the second leg of the quarter-final tie against Liverpool would have stood. City’s misfortune has been to keep finding themselves a year behind the interpretation.
It’s coincidence of course, and certainly not the conspiracy many City fans leaving the Etihad seemed to want to claim but still, it’s hard not to appreciate the irony VAR, ostensibly a force for order and consistency in football, should, even though it’s likely to be temporary, be playing such a central role in undermining Guardiola’s quest for order. Football, even now, will have its sport.