Put Away Those Passports

Thanks to Man United's unlikely but deserved 2-1 win over Man City in the FA Cup Final, Newcastle will not be playing in Europe next year.  Given that they are losing out on a third tier competition - the Europa Conference League - this is not a disaster.  Spending Thursdays in Gdansk or Salzburg, then playing Sunday matches isn't all that glamorous or lucrative.  It would have been a chance to give younger players some experience but otherwise, not a big loss.  

Actually, Chelsea are likely more ticked about this result than Newcastle.  The FA Cup winner gets a Europa League berth, so Chelsea are kicked down to the Europa Conference League.  Surely not the European experience they were hoping for.

D'oh: Gvardiol heads the ball perfectly over his own
 keeper for Garnacho to run onto for a 1-0 for United

That final featured one of the better defensive howlers of the year, this miscommunication between keeper Ortega and defender Gvardiol.  That was the first goal and United added another before halftime.  City didn't score until the 87th minute and looked totally lifeless and perplexed the whole match.  Well, maybe that's an exaggeration as the match stats are pretty close.  But that certainly wasn't a City side that would scare anybody.

180 Minutes Later...

We are still waiting for a goal.  Wow, two straight 0-0 draws for the Union.  I was keeping track of Saturday night's 0-0 draw with Charlotte on-line so I can't really comment on how they looked.  All I know is that the score never changed.  The stats say they had 11 shots, five on target and expected goals of 1.0.  I was at Subaru Park for Wednesday's "contest" with Toronto, in which they managed just one shot on target.  I'm not sure how they managed even .8 expected goals based on the shots they took.  Toronto had one shot off the crossbar and managed to sky a shot from the six over the bar so 0-2 would have been a fair result here.  

A Geordie in Philly; Matty Longstaff
made a nuisance of himself
Photo: Steven Falk

The match did provide a chance to see former Magpie Matty Longstaff in action.  He certainly looked to cover a lot of ground, though I haven't found a stat on distance covered.  He also looks very grabby and eventually did earn a yellow card late in the match.  Though tempted, I did resist yelling out "your brother is a much better player."  

The Union last scored with the opposition at full strength in the 47th minute against NYCFC; that's 223 minutes ago; 237 if we add the 14 minutes they were at equal strength versus New England.  They didn't generate any serious chances against Toronto and appeared content to have toothless possession in the middle third of the pitch.  Most of the attacking was misplaced passes either right to the defense or harmlessly over the defenders.  

For the glass is half full crowd, this was the third straight clean sheet for the Union and the back duo of Elliot and Glesnes look to have sorted some things out.  Also, with Blake out 4-6 weeks after meniscus surgery, seeing Semmle's strong performances in goal is comforting.  And as noted last week, while these maybe weren't must-win matches, they were must-not-lose contests so they didn't drop any further behind other playoff contenders.  

At some point though, these draws have to turn into wins or the U will be sitting out this post season.

WARNING: WONKINESS AHEAD

The Laws of the Game Under A Microscope: Part I - VAR

Thanks to Wolverhampton, VAR will be getting a thorough going over this summer.  I think we've been clear about our bias here at BFS; it needs some tweaking like better communication, more transparency and improved efficiency but we think it should stay.  Part of the problem in the debate is that people don't follow through on the implications of eliminating VAR and that either question is framed incorrectly or they use the wrong data to answer the question.

Let us start with this list compiled by ESPN showing every call that was overturned based on the use  of VAR of which there were 110.  Note that if your position is that VAR should be eliminated, these are the only calls the matter.  The cases in which VAR (correctly or incorrectly) did not intervene are irrelevant to your argument because in those circumstances you got exactly what you wanted - the call on the field stood.

Clearly, there was an impact in many of those 110 cases; the table below from the ESPN article shows the net gain or loss in goals as result of overturned calls: 

VAR - NET SCORE

Fulham +5

Nottm Forest +5

Aston Villa +4

Manchester City +4

Everton +2

Brentford +1

Brighton & Hove Albion +1

Burnley +1

Arsenal 0

Liverpool 0

Newcastle 0

AFC Bournemouth -1

Luton -1

Tottenham -1

Chelsea -2

Crystal Palace -2

Manchester United -2

Sheff United -3

West Ham -4

Wolves -7

We can see why Wolves might be upset.  Not sure why Nottingham Forest are so quick to join with them in the push to eliminate VAR though.  

But this isn't an indication of whether VAR is working or not.  The whole point was to make sure egregious mistakes did get overturned.  Realizing it's a subjective question, don't we want to know how many of those calls should have stood?  Fortunately, there is a group called the Key Match Incidents (KMI) panel that does just that.  The KMI panel is made up of former players, coaches and referees and was formed to assess key decisions in Premier League matches. 

So what did they find?  The KMI panel determined that there were 31 errors related to VAR in the 23-24 season; they are listed here, again courtesy of ESPN.  A careful read of that list reveals that 26 of the errors were cases in which VAR should have intervened but didn't and just five incidences where VAR incorrectly overturned the call on the field.  In other words, VAR intervention was correctly applied over 95% of the time (105/110).   Being more blunt and graphic, VAR prevented teams from being screwed by 105 shitty calls.

Again, the 26 errors in which VAR should have overturned calls are not relevant to the argument that the system needs to be scrapped.  We can't even be sure they are an indication that the system sucks because we don't know what percentage this represents.  VAR is supposed to look at every goal plus a ton of other key moments (possible fouls in the box, potential red cards, etc.)  We do know there were 1,246 goals scored this year but the number of potential PKs and red cards that weren't given is unknowable.  But it sure seems that 26 errors is going to be a very small miniscule percentage of potential calls (like under 1%?).  

A table in the second ESPN article shows the league table corrected for the VAR errors.  We have three problems here.  First, it is not the same as what the table would have looked like without VAR; it's what the table would look like with a "flawless" VAR system.  Second, unless it was the last play of the match, it's hard to say the match would have played out the same the rest of the way had the error not been made.  Lastly, the methodology looks a bit dodgy to me.  Take the error in the Nottingham Forest - Newcastle match.  With the score 2-2, Forest "should have been" awarded a PK in the 62nd minute.  VAR declined to overturn and Newcastle went on to win 3-2.  I could see a draw would be a fair result but ESPN says Newcastle would have lost that match if the PK had been awarded and puts the Magpies at a -3 if VAR was working right.  That is an incredible leap.  The PK conversion is not 100% and then you're saying that Newcastle would not have scored in remaining 28+ minutes. 

Going against my own advice, I used the ESPN articles and match data to construct my assessment of what the table would have looked like without VAR.  Many times it was clear cut - just add or subtract the goals and recalculate the final score.  Sometimes the call had no impact on a match (e.g. Chelsea would have only beaten West Ham 4-0 instead of 5-0).  Sometimes it did (Nottingham Forest would have drawn Burnley 1-1 instead of winning 2-1).  The hairiest ones involve red cards.  For example, on 12/17, Ben Mee got a red card late due to VAR intervention with Brentford up 1-0 on Aston Villa, who scored twice in the final 10 minutes to take a 2-1 win.  Rightly or wrongly, for purposes of this analysis, I assumed any goals scored after a VAR-induced red card, would not have happened so I have this as a -3 for Villa and plus 3 for Brentford.  Here's the table:

Note that it is ordered by the adjusted finish, not actual finish (which is the number the first column).  Biggest change is that Aston Villa would not have made Champions League.  Yes, Wolves would have gained the most points and the most places if the system were scrapped.  

I suppose you could argue, if it doesn't make that difference, why y'all even bother as Ted Lasso would ask?  Aston Villa probably will say it makes a difference.  Plus, isn't it fairer that 105 bad calls were addressed.  You could argue that it disrupts the flow of the game but I suggest a better target if you're worred about that is to deal with players rolling around in agony on the pitch for non-existent injuries.

A final point here.  The poster child for VAR mistakes was the Luis Diaz goal ruled out for offside and the VAR mistakenly thinking the call on the field was goal so he didn't intervene.  Imagine had that happened with no VAR.  The clamor for instituting some kind of system to allow for correction of egregious errors would have been deafening.  We're all for improvements but calling for trashing the whole thing is just sour grapes.  Your motto can be "We know they were shitty calls but they were shitty calls in our favor."

Next week in Laws Under the Microscope: Blue Cards (aka Sin Bins).

Better Than the Real Forest Green

Forest Green celebrate goal in season finale vs Brighton

Finally caught up in Football Manager.  After a dreadful eight-game spell in which we managed just two wins and two draws, we closed the season with a solid nine game stretch of seven wins and two draws.  Frankly, both were driven by the strength of schedule.  We had Man City, Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham in the slump.  Anyway, like last season, we ended up sixth in the Premier League.  However, we did it with 75 points as opposed to just 62 last season so we don't see it has failure to progress.  The bad news is that, also like last year, because winners of the Carabao Cup and the FA Cup didn't finish in the top seven, we will again miss out on any of the European competitions.  Some consolation in that I was selected as Manager of the Year, likely because the preseason predictions had us finishing 17th.  

We did much better than the real Forest Green, who finished last in League Two and now find themselves where Wrexham were two years ago - in fifth tier non-league football.

Champions League Final

The season winds down with the last of the European competition finals - the Champions League final between Dortmund and Real Madrid.  That's 3 pm on Saturday on CBS.  Can't say we're ginned up for this but we will likely watch.

Then it will be back to Subaru Park to hear the Canadian National Anthem for the second time this week as the Union take on Montreal.  That's at 7:30 on double pay walled MLS Season Pass.  Only 15 matches into the season, this is still pretty much in the must-win category.