To a large degree, I’ve got a lot of admiration for Scott Parker here.
It’s not quite Jose Mourinho levels of ‘If I speak, I’m in trouble’ levels of trying to stick it to the officials and those in charge, but it’s pretty close, and shows a little bit of grit and anger at the performance of the referee.
And I can’t blame him if I’m being honest.
Fulham were once again involved in a controversial decision when it came to penalties this weekend, as Newcastle United were awarded a penalty for a foul by Joachim Andersen on Callum Wilson, even though it looked as if contact was initiated outside the box, and there was also a hint of a dive from the Newcastle man in the box.
And speaking after the game, the Fulham boss was not one to mince words about what went down:
“What’s puzzling and concerning, is we have VAR now, he walks over to a screen, I don’t know if he’s seeing a different angle to what I’ve just seen in the changing room, but the initial contact takes place outside the box, he then falls over. That’s what’s concerning.
What’s concerning me is that we brought VAR in to make correct decisions, and yet again I sit here – like a manager or two every week – and am not quite sure how we’ve come to the decision, and that’s what’s puzzling.”
Are you a fan of VAR?
Yes
No
I touched on this earlier today, this isn’t necessarily a VAR problem. This is just poor officiating by the referee who was in charge of the game. VAR did their job by recommending referee Graham Scott go and look at the monitor, it’s then up to him to make the right decision, which on this occasion he didn’t.
So if you do want to put the blame on someone for what happened, don’t necessarily point the blame at the technology, point it at those people who are in charge of using it.
What about you? What do you make of Parker’s comments?