There was quite a bit of heavy criticism of poor old Lee Dixon on Sunday afternoon when he was on co-commentary duty with NBC over in Murica for the Manchester United v Arsenal game. In the course of the contest he wondered out loud about why so few goalkeepers wear caps anymore “when we have global warming these days … allegedly”.
You don’t generally expect to hear climate-change scepticism while watching your football, it generally being a refuge from that class of thing, but while nobody, except maybe Matt Le Tissier, would welcome such an intervention, it actually came as a blessed relief from the incessant hot air spurted over the weekend about VAR.
“This decision that we’re about to see is as bad a decision you’re going to see for at least half an hour,” said Alan Shearer on Match of the Day about one of Saturday’s several contentious rulings, when West Ham were denied a late, late equaliser against Chelsea because Jarrod Bowen was adjudged to have caused grievous bodily harm to Edouard Mendy in the build-up to the (disallowed) goal, when there was divil a thing wrong with Edouard other than his cheeks sizzling from making a bags of dealing with Bowen’s approach to his said body.
The issue isn’t VAR, rather the interpretation of incidents by humans reviewing the replays provided by VAR. Hello?
“It’s a terrible, disgraceful decision,” said Al. “It’s actually unbelievable, it’s ridiculous,” said Danny Murphy. “A shambles,” said Declan Rice. “Scandalous,” said David Moyes.
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All of which was true, but complaints about VAR, which now take up 94.2 per cent of post-match discussions, are becoming severely tedious, not least because the complainants still don’t seem to get that the issue isn’t VAR, rather the interpretation of incidents by humans reviewing the replays provided by VAR. Hello? It’s sort of like blaming your camera for the absence of, say, smiles in the family photographs it takes. Or blaming Sky Sports News for your club not signing a megastar before their transfer deadline clock struck zero. And they literally had a transfer deadline clock, which even split seconds into milliseconds, the need for which became apparent when Fulham were trying to rush through Dan James’s medical.
Finally. Phew. “BREAKING: Dan James has passed his medical at Fulham ahead of a season-long loan from Leeds United.”
The world could rest.
But happily, the focus on Dan’s medical and, come the weekend, VAR was occasionally distracted by the quality of passing produced by, say, Kevin de Bruyne on Saturday, which prompted reminders, it being the seventh anniversary of Manchester City paying £55 million for the lad, of Paul Merson’s take on his signing back then.
“I just don’t see it. I don’t see £50m-odd for this player. I really do not see it at all. Honestly, Jeff, I thought it was lire.”
Merse, though, is still in work, this time popping up alongside Roy Keane and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink for Sky’s coverage of the United v Arsenal game.
Come full-time, by which time Arsenal had been downed by a margin of three to one, Merse tried to remain buoyant about their performance, at which point Roy asked him if he was going to a have a “sing-song” on the way home.
“But did United deserve the win,” David Jones asked Jimmy. “Yes,” he replied, “they scored more goals.”
I’ve no questions to ask you because I’m still upset over Dublin
— Roy Keane
Not that Jimmy puts scoring goals above everything in life. Remember when he was told, back in the day, that Alan Shearer claimed scoring goals was better than sex? “He’s not having proper sex,” Jimmy replied.
But he came close enough to conceding that Christian Eriksen’s quarter-back-ish-like performance was almost as good as nooky, the Danish lad later joining the pundits on the touchline.
“It was a lovely afternoon,” said Eriksen, him standing there in his flip-flops, which he probably could have worn in the game and still sprayed his sumptuous passes about the place.
“I’ve no questions to ask you because I’m still upset over Dublin,” said Roy, having failed to erase from his memory bank Eriksen’s hat-trick against our boys in that 2018 World Cup qualifier.
“It was a good night out in Dublin as well,” Eriksen beamed.
“I bet it was,” Roy bristled, the steam coming out of his ears doing nothing for climate change.
