You’d never guess that John Nicholson hates VAR as he runs down some of his favourite disallowed goals…
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Cheick Tiote v Manchester City
Goals were actually disallowed before VAR.
Here, Tiote gathers the ball 30 yards out and drills it into the top right-hand corner over the heads of a packed penalty area. It is a stunning strike and the lad thinks he’s scored what Paul Merson would, like a six-year-old, call ‘a worldy’.
Trouble is three Newcastle players are offside. Not controversial at all and you didn’t need a man in a darkened room in Stockley Park to tell a waiting referee with his finger in his ear, folk-singer style.
Chunky, of course, wags his finger and thinks he knows best but he knows less about football than dancing.
Thierry Henry v Blackburn
Bit of a classic. Brad Friedel collects the ball with Henry in close attendance. He releases it in order to boot it up field and Henry, the cheeky monkey, boots it as it’s released and goes on to score. Cue outrage. If social media was around, it would have had a meltdown as nerdy boys (it’s always boys) slow down the footage and argue about when exactly a ball is released, as the rest of us see no point in this sort of granular argument and get on with life.
Youri Tielemans v Fulham
A Leicester corner comes out to Tielemans 30 yards out. He absolutely leathers it into the top corner. But the VAR decides from on high to disallow it simply because a Foxes player is offside, a fact the referee or linesperson should have been able to spot without someone squinting at a screen in a sordid little grief hole, terrified to get it wrong and feel the wrath of Jamie Redknapp’s nepo baby tongue. Great strike but illegal.
READ: You cannot polish the turd that is VAR; just flush it down the toilet
Don Hutchison v Liverpool
Panties got in a right wad about this one. In the last minute of the Merseyside derby, Liverpool keeper Sander Westerveld collects the ball and launches it up-field, only to hit the world’s most Mackem Scotsman square in the back and bounce back into the goal. Perfectly fine, except Graham Poll disallowed it because he had idiot tendencies and he was prone to terrible decisions. He couldn’t tell you which law was broken to this day.
It’s idiotic decisions like this that increased the demand for VAR to solve. Only it didn’t and we argued about how biased and stupid the VAR is instead.
Alexis Mac Allister v Leicester
The sort of brilliant strike we all love. Head over the ball, a first-time strike from 30 yards into the top left corner that really makes the net bulge. He runs away joyfully at the goal but uh-oh, here comes the cloak of VAR doom to disallow it. Repeated replays don’t make it much clearer as the ball goes over a crowd of players.
It’s a goal so there must be a way to disallow it and not just because he’s got an annoying, never seen before, space between Mac and Allister. A typical example of the system searching to disallow a goal and smother joy at birth. Thank you, Poindexter, you just ruined football. You must be proud.
Robin van Persie v Manchester City
Another example of kicking the ball out of the keeper’s hands, in this case, Joe Hart’s massive gloves. Only he’s tossed it up in order to boot it and plainly it’s in play, not protected by the goalkeeper’s forcefield. It’s a superb finish as he flicks it up as Hart releases it and then volleys it 25 yards into an open net. A disallowed goal but one which should have been allowed and Joe had some substantial neck to claim it was a foul. A classic bit of Joe Harting.
Pedro Mendes vs Manchester United
You must remember this. It’s that moment when Roy Carroll advances by 50 yards and clears the ball up-field only, as he runs back to his goal, for it to be immediately cleared back to Pedro Mendes who hooks it towards goal in a 50-yard looping shot. Carroll is still running back and attempts to catch it but makes a total bollocks of it and it bounces out of his arms and into the net. Seeing the ball bouncing into the net, he dives to scoop it out. But he fails.
The ball is in the middle of the net but the linesman doesn’t realise and he gets away with it, albeit giving the lino a shifty look in the process. Not disallowed as such, but a goal not awarded when it should have been.
Ronaldo v Al Shabab
Of course we had to have a CR7 disallowed goal from the comedy league which nobody watches that people only play in for money. He goes up for one of his ludicrous long-necked headers and scores but it’s ruled out for a push. CR7 protests vehemently as though this is a human rights crime, which is ironic really, and in a fit of paranoia, accuses the referee of being against him, which would have at least been understandable, but obviously not true. But they won 4-0 and the large Adam’s Appled one scored twice. Yeah, they hate you Chris. Now shut up, eh, you massive ar*ehole.
Peter Schmeichel v Wimbledon
It must have been near the end of the game. The big Dane has gone up for a corner. The ball goes out to the edge of the box, everyone rushes out towards the ball, which gets chipped in and to Schmeichel who, with his back still to goal, manages to hit it with the outside of his foot into the corner. Yay! Great goal. Only its offside. By a country mile. What I like about this is there’s no protestations or complaints. He just runs back, expressionless. No stropping or thinking the world is against you like a total git.
Leigh Griffiths v Hearts
Another goal-not-given. Imagine how galling it must be to take a free-kick from 45 yards and for it to hit the underside of the bar and go in, only for the referee to not spot it’s gone in the goal and bounced out. Utter blind stupidity. The linesman is standing there and might as well be wearing a blindfold. He hasn’t a clue, even Hibernian’s Griffiths isn’t sure it is a goal. It was probably a Unionist conspiracy.
