‘Factual handball’ joins the ranks of VAR doublespeak as Bournemouth-Newcastle sparks to life late on

Factual handball, then. The latest slice of doublespeak that VAR’s inevitable flaws has delivered to our great game. Clear and obvious, your days as top dog are over.

We remain largely agnostic about VAR. It is neither the scourge that its fiercest critics insist, nor – clearly – can it ever provide the perfect solution for an inherently subjective game. We wouldn’t oppose binning it altogether, on the proviso that absolutely no player, manager, fan or TV pundit ever complain about decisions ever again or spend hours poring over super slo-mo footage and freeze-frames that a human referee or assistant will never get. We also think everyone should have a unicorn and their own personal jet-pack, free of charge.

Anyway. While it should be obvious to any grown-up that VAR isn’t and never can be perfect, the language that has grown up around it is so important. Because it so often pretends that it can deal in absolutes, as if wishing could make it so.

We’ve been told that this season the on-field decision will benefit from a kind of ‘umpire’s call’ equivalent protection, yet here we see a potential injury-time winner for Bournemouth chalked off without the on-field referee’s involvement at all after Dango Ouattara’s winner was adjudged by the VAR to have come off the upper part of his arm rather than the lower part of the shoulder.

Now the thing here is that the decision itself isn’t really a problem. We can understand why Andoni Iraola was p*ssed off and don’t expect any agreement from Bournemouth fans. It’s clearly a joy-sapping slice of nitpickery, of course, but there is no version of VAR that can ever eradicate that element. It’s what its proponents have always insisted upon; that the correct decision trumps all else.

From the first replay, we suspected the goal would be disallowed. We would, if pushed, agree with the VAR’s view that the contact point was more upper arm than lower shoulder. But we would not swear to that on any part of our anatomy, upper or otherwise. We would not and could not describe anything about that decision as ‘factual’ based on a few TV replays.

It’s probable handball, is what it is. Likely handball. Feasible handball. But that’s no good, is it? We must pretend the decision is clear and indeed obvious when it’s actually nothing of the sort.

That Bournemouth’s frustration was doubled by Joelinton escaping with a yellow card and no further attention from VAR for a far more factual clothesline on Neto moments later doesn’t help. It was dangerous and cynical and appeared as straightforward a red card as you could wish to see.

What all that drama did do was provide a layer of intrigue that had previously been lacking. One could, if one were so inclined, make a pretty compelling case that this, rather than improved accuracy and ‘factual’ outcomes, is VAR’s primary purpose. Because it’s far better at boiling p*ss than cooling it.

But the 90 minutes before it all went mad had been somewhat subdued. Newcastle had started brightly, Alexander Isak at his twinkling, mischievous best, but then rather lost control and fell behind. Eddie Howe’s side never truly regained that control they’d enjoyed in the early stages even after Anthony Gordon’s first goal of the season drew them level.

Either side could have nicked it in the closing stages even without factual misdemeanours but in truth neither side really deserved to.

And for both sides it’s now a vaguely inconclusive start to the season. Neither have any reason for alarm bells to be ringing. And yet neither would feel they’ve yet played as well as they can and must.

Newcastle made most of their own problems in an unconvincing 1-0 home win over Southampton on the opening day and never really caught fire here, either, while for Bournemouth it’s a pair of 1-1 draws – one secured from behind and one from ahead – both of which could have been better or worse.

What can be said for both sides is that they’ve made factual unbeaten starts.

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