Here at BoyleSports, we caught up with Sky Sports pundit Don Goodman who gave us his thoughts on VAR, Wolves and star defender Max Kilman.
It has been a solid start to the Premier League season for Wolves with the club in 13th place, 16 games into the season on 19-points. However, had it not been for several contentious VAR decisions and incidents they may be even higher in the table/
Sky Sports pundit Don Goodman argues there is no agenda or conspiracy against Wolves, argues that referees are only human and tips star Wolves defender for a big move in the future following previous interest from Italy.
NO VAR AGENDA AGAINST WOLVES
There is no agenda or conspiracy, it’s just a really, really unfortunate set of coincidences to see Wolves be on the end of poor VAR decisions. There’s no rhyme or reason for it. They get apologies, but that doesn’t get them the points back.
They’ve really fallen foul of the term ‘clear and obvious’. This high threshold VAR seems to have before it wants to overturn referees’ decisions has absolutely killed Wolves of getting seven or eight points that they should have had, which would make a huge difference.
ONANA LUCKY AT WOLVES
I did their opening game of the season against Man United, there was the Onana incident on Sasa Kalajdzic, which if that’s not clear and obvious then I don’t know what is.
The Luton handball was a deflection onto an arm, which shouldn’t have been given. In the Newcastle game, Hwang Hee-chan was penalised for making no contact in the box. There was Sheffield United’s penalty, too.
These are clear things. The first Fulham penalty, the referee said to Gary O’Neil, ‘I should have been sent to the screen, and had I been sent to the screen I would have overturned my decision’.
REFS ARE ONLY HUMAN
So they’ve just been super, super unlucky. That’s all it is. I go to referee camps, I watch how hard they work to be the best they can be, but they’re human and they’re going to make mistakes.
The problem they’ve got when they make a mistake is this term, ‘clear and obvious’ in VAR and this threshold of not wanting to send referees to the screen for 50/50 decisions. Instead of sending the referee to the screen for a 50/50 decision, they will just go, ‘It’s not clear and obvious, carry on’. That’s ridiculous to me.
Let the referee have the final say. Send him to the screen and let him be the judge.
Send him to the screen without him having to think, ‘I’ve made a mistake here’. Send him to the screen with the attitude, ‘You might be right, you might be wrong, but let’s have a look at the footage and then make a final decision’, and then it stops with the referee rather than the VAR, who have made some terrible decisions over the past few weeks.
KILMAN DESTINED FOR A EUROPEAN GIANT?
I’ve watched his rise. I’ve watched him go from strength to strength. He’s now been made captain, which was a really smart move by Gary O’Neil. I know there were bids from Italy in the summer.
He’s an excellent player, a modern centre-half. He’s big, he’s strong, he’s quick, he’s a ball player, he can pass and he can dribble out of defence. Wolves have been clever enough to tie him to a deal until June 2028.
I expect he’ll be on the radar of an awful lot of top, top clubs – some in this country, some abroad. But given that he’s signed that new contract, Wolves are in a really strong position, so I wouldn’t expect him to go in the January transfer window. But if his level of performances remain the same, then there is a chance Wolves could lose him to a Premier League powerhouse or European giant.
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