Everton and PGMOL: It's time to get nasty

All fans want is a bit of consistency.

Of course, when that consistency comes at a cost for your team, it’s never nice. But when it comes to refereeing decisions, the introduction of VAR was meant to ensure one thing: consistency.

Instead, the only consistency these days is that the Premier League referees remain woefully inconsistent.

From one week to the next, snap that, from one decision to the next, within a game, there is no consistency.

Now, that doesn’t have to be bad. We don’t want the game to be refereed by robots or AI. The issue is that PGMOL and other refereeing bodies are insistent on removing as much human error as possible.

The introduction of VAR should have been a blessing. Instead, its botched use has proved a curse.

But what it should have done is reduce the grey areas. It should have limited the need for subjectivity in some instances and helped officials implement clear guidance where required.

One of those areas should be the handball rule, yet instead of providing any clarity, PGMOL continues to make a complete pig’s ear of applying the guidelines with any consistency whatsoever.

On Saturday, Everton suffered their latest injustice related to this particular rule. And for the second time in as many games, they were denied a clear-cut penalty.

While the spot-kick that the Toffees should have been awarded against Arsenal was not due to a handball, but instead a wild attempt at a clearance by William Saliba, which caught the leg of Thierno Barry, it was a blatant mistake from both the on-field referee and those officials in the VAR room at Stockley Park.

Fast-forward a week, and it is much more understandable than Craig Pawson (quite possibly the most unpopular of the Premier League referees among Evertonians) missed the handball offence by Burnley’s Jaidon Anthony as he attempted to block Tyler Dibling’s effort late on at Turf Moor.

Anthony was rushing out at speed, and Dibling’s attempt was hammered in at pace. But the ball clearly struck the Burnley winger’s arm as he attempted to block it. Even if Pawson missed it, which is easy enough, Dibling and his teammates immediately appealed and there was an instant VAR check.

The replays showed it all. There should have been no question that Pawson should, at the very least, been asked to go to the touchline monitor and reassess his decision. If he still felt no offence had occurred, then that was his call to make. But there is no way he clearly and objectively had the information to clear Anthony of wrongdoing.

Yes, the ball was hit with venom and there was little space between Dibling and Anthony. Yet that has not stopped Premier League referees from dishing out similar penalties this season. Indeed, Everton have been on the end of two such decisions.

Firstly, there was the James Tarkowski incident on the opening day against Leeds United. Tarkowski’s arm was in no way in an unnatural position, but due to the distance the ball travelled, it was adjudged to be a penalty after a forensic VAR inspection.

In the second game of the season, against Brighton, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall was deemed to have handled. His arms were up and away slightly from his body, as would be natural as he lunged in feet-first to make a block. There was less than three yards between him and the shooter, yet a penalty was still awarded.

So quite how the VAR officials on duty for the Burnley game failed to send Pawson to the screen is a mystery.

What is equally as frustrating, though, is the lack of vocal disappointment from within Everton’s camp.

Manager David Moyes said he had not seen the incident in detail, though did not disagree when he was then told by journalists in his post-match press conference that it could easily have been given.

While Moyes understandably did not look for excuses after a drab display in a dour draw, this felt like an opportunity wasted. Other clubs, and Everton’s dear neighbours across Stanley Park are chief among them, squander no chance to bemoan refereeing decisions and what they feel is harsh, inconsistent treatment.

This is something Everton as a club must be better at. The players on the pitch must be better at getting around officials — forcing them to do their jobs. Tarkowski, as captain, must ensure he is the one leading this and, while acting respectfully, applying as much pressure as he is allowed to. It is the best way to get this batch of officials to take accountability.

Everton as a club must start being bullish. Call out the inconsistencies, call out the discrepancies and the mistakes. Take the fine or punishment if it comes.

There is no grand conspiracy in place; it is mere incompetence. But that incompetence continues to cost Everton points, and other clubs, too. They say that over the course of a season, these decisions even each other out. Well, in close to 25 years of supporting this club, this writer has not experienced that much “evening out”.

Everton should start to realise, playing nice gets you nowhere. It’s time to get nasty.

 

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