Manchester City Fan View: Lack of VAR cost us in more ways than one in Cardiff

Manchester City earned another win on Sunday afternoon, maintaining their place as the only Premier League side still standing in all four competitions, as they dispatched of Championship outfit Cardiff City away from home in the FA Cup fourth round.

The 2-0 made for a dominant display by Pep Guardiola’s men, but the lack of the video assistant referee cost them in more ways than one against Neil Warnock’s side.

Bernardo Silva scored an exquisite goal in the first half which was chalked off for an apparent offside which affected the goalkeeper’s ability to prevent the shot. Yet Leroy Sane, the City star in question, was both onside and far from being in a position which would have caused an impairment of the Cardiff goalkeeper’s vision.

Not only that, but Sane would later be forced off at half time due to an injury after a late, deliberate, studs up challenge on the German international was merely punished with a yellow card. That challenge infuriated both City supporters and coach Guardiola alike, and is only the latest in a string of dangerous challenges which has gone unpunished by referees.

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The likes of Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Jacob Murphy, Jason Puncheon and now Joe Bennett have all made potentially injury inducing ‘tackles’ on some of City’s best players. Now Leroy Sane could suffer at the hands of poor refereeing and be on the sidelines for up to a month, according to Guardiola.

The FA Cup fixture between Liverpool and West Brom at Anfield on Saturday was a game in which the result could ultimately have been decided by the use of VAR – a penalty was awarded and a goal was disallowed.

The appalling officiating in City’s latest cup contest only served to further enhance my insistence on video technology becoming a fully integrated facet of modern football. Indeed, it seems rather bizarre and, in fact, downright unbalanced and unfair that the VAR is only being utilised in a select few fixtures.

If a technology designed to reduce refereeing errors is being implemented into a competition, then it must be done so in a fair manner. Just as Guardiola says that the FA ought to be doing more in order to protect football players in general, not just his City slickers, for malicious challenges, the FA also ought to ensure that VAR is made available in as many games as possible.

As times change in the contemporary footballing landscape – with goalline technology, extra substitutions and revamped offside laws – it is strange how so much opposition is being raised to video refereeing. It really should be embraced, even if it simply affords additional protection to players’ wellbeing.