The Premier League will introduce “thicker lines” for the Video Assistant Referee’s offside decisions next season. The thicker lines on the VAR will allow a slightly bigger margin of error to the really tight offside calls. It’s also said that the ambition is to give the attacking players the ‘benefit of the doubt’. Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta was one of the many managers left furious with the VAR during the 2020/21 season. The Gunners were denied a late penalty in the 1-0 defeat to Everton in April with Nicolas Pepe deemed to be marginally offside in the build-up.
Mikel Arteta said: “This has been building up. Enough is enough. Today I have had enough. We’ve had many of them that nobody explains. It affects a lot of people, our job and most importantly our football club. What they [the match officials] do is behind the telephone. That’s what I cannot understand. We were the better team but there are certain decisions that we can’t control. To disallow a penalty 15 seconds before – [we had] eight or nine touches [after Nicolas Pepe was offside] – I saw it 10 times and I don’t get it. It can be taken the way they want. Zero control. Somebody has to explain that.”
