Study: A Proper Review of All 600+ VAR Premier League Decisions since 2019

"Just the facts, ma'am" (FREE READ)

Overview of all clubs; plus special focus on Liverpool and the Reds rivals

Summary

• All data is Premier League only, correct up to 11th November 2024 unless otherwise stated (the other data is correct up to late October 2024).

• VARs categorically do not favour the bigger clubs. Brentford and Nottingham Forest (yes, Nottingham Forest!) have been two of the biggest beneficiaries.

• Since their takeover, Newcastle rank first for decisions in their favour via VAR. Indeed, they rank top since VAR was introduced in 2019, but it almost all occurs after 2021.

• Liverpool do worst out of ‘main four’ for balance of all VAR decisions.

• Liverpool do pretty well via handballs.

• Liverpool do poorly via any foul-related decision.

• Liverpool do terribly via foul-related penalties.

• Liverpool do very poorly via VAR interventions at Anfield.

• Only one penalty has ever been awarded against Man City by a VAR, and that was in 2019, and nearly 200 games ago.

• While not VAR-related, Liverpool went over 300 league games (and eight years) without an opponent receiving a second yellow card, when the lowest number in that time for any other club was five, and some other clubs had 10+. Outlying data like this is highly unlikely to be random.

• I’ve also previously shown that Mancunian refs are more generous than normal when on Merseyside, and Merseyside refs are more generous than normal when in Manchester, to show a kind of reverse bias. But the same refs are extra harsh doing those same clubs in away matches.

• This reverse bias appears to be stadium related, as not only does it not apply for referees in away games, they do not show reverse bias as VARs. Liverpool get very little from Mancunian VARs, despite the high number of games they’ve overseen.

• The only Mancunian VAR to give something for Liverpool is Chris Kavanagh (3), while Paul Tierney has given three against (all to Manchester clubs), and Kavanagh two against, while Lee Mason (1) is responsible for another, to make the balance -3 when Mancunian refs do Liverpool games as VAR.

• I’ve also previously shown than of 600+ penalties awarded during the multi-season sample period of the 2010s, British players won more penalties than foreign players, and conceded fewer penalties than foreign players, to statistically significant levels.

• You can’t quantify the many decisions not given, but can assume from the large data set that they may follow the patterns of those given.

• There is obviously loads more than can be done with the data, but I’ve spent weeks on it already. My bias is towards Liverpool, but most of the analysis relates to clear facts via the data. Some subjective interpretations have been added.

• If data analysis, and spotting patterns (whilst avoiding apophenia) is a massive part of football and gaining insights, why can’t we do the same with officials? Why does that become ‘conspiratorial’? There’s a knee-jerk anti-reaction to any assessment of officials by those who think it’s only for the insane (because the insane do also focus on this stuff, but with myself on half included).

• No grand conspiracy is being alleged, but people’s biases, vendettas, hatreds, etc., can affect their work. That should be obvious even to the most low-IQ of individuals, but sometimes people’s fears of conspiracy-talk leads to a blanket shutting down of all discussion.

• There is an edit to make, with a mistake in the original data listing a VAR decision as being for Liverpool when actually it was against (details later). So the totals should have one removed from the For column and one added to the Against column. I’ll update the graphs in due course.

Anyway, onto the piece.

*All data on this latest VAR study will be shared at the foot of the article.*

624 Interventions

So there I was, busily but steadily working on this piece for about a month now, waiting for the international break; albeit the refereeing and VARing situation escalated somewhat this week.

Using data collated by Andrew Beasley, including via ESPN, I have ‘analysed’ all 624 VAR interventions in terms of who they were for and against, where they occurred and what types of offence were punished.

That said, I instantly stripped out 272 offsides, to leave 352 subjective decisions; as offsides are still largely objective, and it’s impossible to say which offsides were toenails and armpits (such as Roberto Firmino’s infamous one against Aston Villa) and which were off by five yards.

• 624 VAR interventions

• 272 offsides and line calls

• 352 fouls, handballs, red cards, etc.

• 4 of the interventions were labelled as neutral, as they favoured neither side.

(I also removed ‘line calls’, such as ball out of play, or a penalty changed to outside the box, or vice versa; and encroachment at penalties by attacking players or goalkeeper.)

Even when it’s Ibrahima Konaté’s toe playing Nicolas Jackson on by a millimetre, or Mo Salah being offside for Trent Alexander’s goal at Old Trafford, I have no complaints with either going against the team I support.

I haven’t counted the offside decisions, but I imagine that Liverpool’s high line in 2019 started the #LiVARpool nonsense, as the Reds conceded goals that were later chalked off as offside. My theory for why Liverpool get far less from VARs in general is linked to #LiVARpool, which put pressures on refs via social media outrage (which tends to drive a lot of the world these days, irrespective of facts).

So, this is about subjective calls.

I looked mainly on the four clubs I’ve been focussing on for several years now, with three of Liverpool’s big-club ‘peers’ for the closest like-for-like comparisons; but there are also sections on the whole of the Premier League.

When I first went deep on officiating stuff (looking back to when Jürgen Klopp first arrived in 2015, as a natural starting point given how swiftly Liverpool’s ‘luck’ with Big Decisions switched), the best four teams in the Premier League over the past half-decade-or-so had been Man City, Liverpool, Man United and Chelsea.

Arsenal aside, the best teams of the past five years have been Man City, Liverpool ... then both Chelsea and Man United well adrift. (And Arsenal have only been really good since 2022/23, and less good this season.)

But then, that allows us to look at big clubs who are not as good at football anymore, and what the decision count reflects; if Man City are the best team, then they should get more decisions in their favour, and Liverpool should be second, given the clear daylight between the various clubs since 2019.

Of course, we could argue that a lot of VAR interventions means a ref is not doing their job, and that’s true to some degree.

But also, VARs get involved over petty things and ignore major things. That’s why VAR is so controversial.

Handballs hover in between subjective and objective. I’ve wondered what to do with them, so I’ve looked at results with them and without them. (They also don’t involve officials predetermining who is a diver, etc.)

Certainly those where the ball strikes the goalscorer’s hand or arm, either as he controls or just deflects onto the arm, are now 100% handballs, especially if well below the upper arm that’s exempt.

That’s an objective decision, as long as the contact is clear. I mentioned in my piece on the David Coote revelations (see link below) that I had no issue with him disallowing Sadio Mané’s goal at Old Trafford after the ball accidentally hit his arm.

David Coote And C*ntgate – I’ve Called This All Along

But plenty remain subjective and contentious, and the laws have also constantly changed.

A lot of people also suggest that VARs and the officials favour big clubs.

They don’t.

They just favour some big clubs; or those clubs get more decisions, whether favoured or not.

As ever, we can’t quantify or list the decisions not made, that vanish into thin air; there is no note of the VAR saying “they both came in high” when one player jumps and karate kicks the other in the chest, and “good process lads, all down the pub for a quick snifter” is nowhere to be seen. Nothing for the Harry Kane assault on Andy Robertson, the Jordan Pickford assault on Virgil van Dijk, the Tyrone Mings karate-kick into Cody Gakpo’s ribs, and so on; and vice versa, for and against every single team. These are not in the data.

But the data perhaps partly explains why such decisions get avoided.

So many decisions are judgement calls, or unclear; and then the decision becomes about motivated reasoning.

Can I give this? Dare I give this? Do I want to give this? What are the repercussions if I do give this?

(Edit: just to add, a lot of the officials Klopp originally criticised, albeit to their face and not in the media, were the ones who subsequently treated the Reds worse, based on the data and anecdotal evidence – including Coote, Paul Tierney and John Brooks. Or it may just be coincidental.)

It used to be about angry fans in a stadium influencing a ref, but now it’s about pundits and Twitter mobs and death threats.

I don’t condone any abuse of officials, but I do expect the biggest league in the world for the biggest sport in the world to have competent, honest and reasonable referees.

I also think that if an official clearly shows he hates a team and calls their manager a xenophobic slur (such as ‘German cunt’, with his nationality conjoined with the slur), he should probably lose his job, but not be shunned from society.

No one has a right to keep a super-well-paid job if grossly negligent, and there are other jobs that do not require the same level of integrity, such as Member of Parliament.

(Or, look out for David Coote’s OnlyFans in 2026.)

EDIT: btw, I wrote this in 2022 on the ultra-weird data around Mo Salah, where refs just don’t see him being fouled.

Incredible Mo Salah Stats That Suggest Something Is Very, Very Wrong

Liverpool

First, the good news!

Liverpool do better than the other three of the main four on the balance of VAR handball decisions. Alas, that’s the only good news. And it’s the smallest sample in terms of difference, with just +3 to the Reds.

• Liverpool do worst out of main four for balance of all VAR decisions

• Liverpool do poorly via any foul-related decision (all over the pitch)

• Liverpool do terribly via foul-related penalties

• Liverpool do very poorly via VAR interventions at Anfield

It’s also now nearly five years since the one and only penalty awarded against Man City by a VAR (Michael Oliver).

• 7 Dec 2019, Manchester City vs Manchester United, Penalty, Awarded (Foul)

I’ve doubled checked this, and it appears to not be some kind of mistake.

(This might help explain Everton away and Rodri’s blatant handball that helped gift City the 2022 title, and Anfield away, and Doku from the dojo, that helped totally swing the title race away from Liverpool last season. If you systematically don’t give penalties against Man City, especially in clutch moments, then it’s not really a fair playing field, is it?)

City and Liverpool’s difference between foul penalties awarded from VARs is beyond startling; a swing of +10 in City’s favour, at +9 to City and a balance of -1 for Liverpool.

Remember, Liverpool do not receive as many penalties as “expected” when compared to rivals, albeit the situation is not as bad as when I first raised it a few years ago; similarly, raising the 300+ games without an opposition second yellow card led to … an opposition red card for a second yellow. (And then another!)

(Note: I’ve just noticed that one of the incidents labelled as a VAR call ‘for’ Liverpool was when Lee Mason said Fabinho committed a penalty foul when, er, kicking the ball, away at Fulham. Andre Marriner looked at the screen and correctly ignored Mason’s hallucinations. But this should therefore go down as a VAR call against Liverpool, so remove one from the For results and add one to the Against results. The VAR wanted to give it, the ref rightly said no. I will update and re-do the graphs in due course.)

I’ll include some general penalty data below.

*The rest of the data is accurate up to late last month.*

All Clubs

This is a few weeks out of date, but the general trends won’t have changed.

The Past Three Years

Three years is a good sample size. It’s also three years since Newcastle were bought by a nation state.

The reason I looked at them was because they came out top overall, 2019-2024, and so I wondered what the shift had been since they were bought (and improved) as a team, and if the change was in line only with that improvement.

I’ll let readers decide, as all I have to share is the data; unlike with Liverpool, I can’t say that I’ve seen every single Newcastle game since 2019, and what may or may not be merited.

Penalties In General

Appendix – All The Data on 624 Decisions

Further information will be added, if possible, in the next day or so. Below is a list of all the interventions by VARs.

I accept any mistakes, should there be any, in my interpretations of the data, but not for those, if any, in the original data. If there are any errors I will seek to correct them, along with notification of the correction.

Click on the images below to enlarge.

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