The Premier League has no intention of changing how it uses VAR to adjudicate marginal offsides despite a reminder from the International Football Association Board that VAR is supposed to be used for ‘clear and obvious errors’.

They like to do things differently in the Premier League. Pitchside monitors? No need for the ref to look at one of those. Ridiculously stupid decision from the referee? No need to get involved! A fingernail is offside? RULE IT OUT! RULE IT OUT!

If there’s one thing VAR hasn’t really been used for this season, it is to overturn ‘clear and obvious’ errors.

If anything, PGMOL and the Premier League have gone out of their way to find reasons to back a referee when he makes a clear and obvious error while pouring over offsides with no more than a few millimeters in them despite it being impossible to tell exactly when the player moved and the ball was played because of both the frame-rate of the video and the limitations of the human eye.

Still, it’s good to know that the Premier League and PGMOL are concerned about the ‘integrity’ of a competition when we’ve all clearly seen Arsenal (and many others) screwed by the person serving as VAR on a regular basis despite what seems to us all as offences that are very much ‘clear and obvious’.

Happy New Year everyone!