Klopp Talk: “There’s Nothing to Laugh About” VAR Decisions

VAR. Video Assistant Referee. You almost certainly have an opinion on it.

I, personally, am not a huge fan. But I’m not going to change anyone’s mind in this article. You know what you think. Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp knows what he thinks. But he found much of the way yesterday’s big decision, in which Roberto Firmino’s armpit(!) was ruled offside, to be frustrating.

“You what? His armpit?” Goal report Klopp as saying in his post-match interview.

“We won 2-1, so it’s now not that serious. But we are talking about serious moments, it’s not right that we are sitting here talking about it and everybody wants to laugh.

“There’s nothing to laugh about, to be honest. A manager can get sacked for losing football games.

”I don’t want to make it bigger than it is. We just have to clarify it. I don’t say anybody is doing it on purpose.”

Speaking more about the game in general, Klopp added that “we still have to learn, we still have to improve, we do, we will, I know that”.

”Sometimes you need to get knocks but so far, we could sort it, most of the time. Yes of course when you score these kinds of goals, it’s lucky but it’s not that we didn’t deserve to win the game.

”I never thought a second about “did we lose already?” or “can we win?”. We just have to try to score, that’s everything. It’s not that I think because now we have a couple of comebacks today is another comeback.”

Love or hate VAR, the point about clarity is correct. There is always a margin of error, always a degree of uncertainty, even in the most advanced technology systems. As it exists today, the Premier League is pretending their offside calls are perfect and flawless. They can never be. Honesty is paramount.