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Aaron Ramsey Spot on with Call For Replays
By Josh Sippie
Call it whining or being sore or sour-pussing or whatever you want, but Arsenal had a perfectly good goal disallowed when Aaron Ramsey had his perfectly time run picked out and the Welshman slotted it home to seemingly put Arsenal up 1-0. As we learned later, that goal could have been the winner. Albeit it would have changed the match and more goals could have scored been, but that is not the point.
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Aaron Ramsey and Arsene Wenger were both vocal after the match about why replays should be permitted to determine if calls are correct or not. “To look at a video for 20 seconds would maybe have changed the outcome of the game. We can take a leaf out of rugby’s book. They do it really well. You see on the screens, they go up there for 20 seconds and they get the decision right in the end. Football can learn something from that,” he said via BBC Sport.
FIFA has long been considering usage of replays, but nothing has really come to pass yet, with FIFA secretary general Jerome Vlacke saying that “it’s a question of making the biggest decision ever in the way football is played.”
The magnitude that Vlacke is putting on it is a little extreme, to be honest, seeing as how minimal video review is already in play.
Either way, Aaron Ramsey and Wenger are correct, and I am not just saying this because video evidence clearly showed that Aaron Ramsey was onside on a goal that would have made all the difference. There is already video usage for determining if a ball crossed the goal line. Referees are fed the information almost instantaneously because it does not take much to review with the technology we have nowadays.
The same would be true for offside calls. It is a matter of crossing a line, the same as goal line reviews. That would require no time at all, probably even less time than the 20 seconds that Aaron Ramsey has identified.
Here is a screen shot of the situation:
As you can see, when considering Martin Skrtel’s backside, Ramsey looks to be perfectly in line with the Liverpool defender and onside. However, you could still make a case for either side of the argument, and that is all that is needed to know to advocate for the use of replays.
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With calls like this that can dictate the end result of the game, the right call has to be made. Linesman should not be responsible for so much.
By using similar technology to the goal line footage, video officials could simply insert a line to determine almost immediately if a player was onside or not.
It is a simple solution that should not require so much delegation but inevitably it will. This incident will probably not in and of itself be enough to spark a change, but it is one step closer to making sure that the right calls are made in the future.
Next: Tactical Dissection of Arsenal's Draw