Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna believes VAR “in its current guise” is “taking from the game as a spectacle”.
The Blues’ 1-0 home loss to Brentford on Saturday was repeatedly interrupted for incidents which McKenna believes were marginal decisions rather than clear and obvious mistakes.
Kevin Schade nodded in the decisive goal from a corner in the 18th minute, but the match was frequently halted throughout, several times due to tussling at set-pieces and most notably before the goal.
McKenna was questioned about the various stoppages and again voiced his irritation with the way VAR is functioning currently—something Town won’t have to contend with next season following their relegation to the Championship.
“I think it was two teams being physical in the box,” he said. “Both looking to work blocks, both being physical and, for me, VAR in general, we won’t have it next season as a club, I’ve spoken about it earlier in the season, I don’t think it’s adding.
“In its current guise, I don’t think it’s adding to the game. Of course, there are some benefits to it, but we’ve had quite a few games like that this year.
“We had it two weeks ago at Newcastle where the game’s been stopped for two, three, four minutes to look at marginal calls that you can never say are clear and obvious. If it was clear and obvious, it could be looked at in three or four seconds and say it’s a decision or not.
“But with it being stopped, supporters in the stadium are standing around or sitting in silence, players are standing around, staff are standing around waiting while things are getting reviewed for minutes on end that are marginal decisions.
“The actual things that went on in the penalty box, they were probably similar for both teams. Both teams had appeals, the referee decided that none of them were strong enough cases to be a penalty.
“The pauses in the game that come, both on set plays but on other incidents, in my opinion, are taking away from the game as a spectacle for the people in the stadium and for those involved.”
In the build-up to the goal, VAR checked a possible penalty when Jacob Greaves collided with Sepp van den Berg, but a spot-kick wasn’t awarded since the ball wasn’t in play when the incident occurred.
Afterward, Jack Taylor and Christian Norgaard were shown yellow cards for another confrontation, once more with the ball seemingly not having entered the field of play.
“That’s what they said to us,” McKenna said. “The first one, Jacob Greaves gets blocked and then as he gets blocked, he blocks the next man and they fall down in the box. I think it had been taken but they said it hadn’t.
“My impression was that it had, whether that’s right or wrong I don’t know, the referee’s really close to see whether it’s a penalty or not. So then there’s the three-minute stoppage or whatever it might be.
“The next one with Jack Taylor, him and Norgaard were both blocking each other and [Mikkel] Damsgaard falls on top of him, so that gets stopped again. I think the ball wasn’t in play at that point, so I understand why there was the next delivery [which led to the goal].
“The biggest one for me probably was the three-minute pause standing around in the box while something gets reviewed from several different angles that by definition then probably can’t be clear and obvious.”