Burnley to seek explanation why late equaliser vs Brentford was ruled out by VAR

Scott Parker’s side thought they had rescued themselves a 98th-minute leveller when Ashley Barnes rifled home to make it 4-4 on Saturday.

But after a lengthy delay, almost totalling five minutes, the ‘goal’ was chalked off for an accidental handball from the Clarets striker.

The decision, made by VAR rather than referee Sam Barrott, has been roundly criticised given the lack of evidence to suggest Barnes definitely handled the ball.

Speaking on Monday afternoon ahead of Burnley’s midweek trip to Everton, Parker confirmed the club is keen to hear a full explanation.

“I think we're going to [get in touch with the PGMOL],” he said. “But I think that's probably going to end up taking place on probably Wednesday or Thursday.

“With such a short turnaround, I think it's certainly something I want to do. I would like to just know exactly what the situation is and just even to get up to speed with the rules, really, on my understanding of how things are. So, I think we will do that later in the week.”

Parker’s pre-Everton press conference was inevitably dominated by talk of VAR, given the Clarets also had a goal ruled out earlier in the game when they thought they had gone 4-3 ahead.

But Zian Flemming’s second of the afternoon was disallowed after Jaidon Anthony, the man to assist the goal, had been ruled offside in the build up by a tiny section of his shirt sleeve.

The officials also took just shy of three minutes to deliberate over their decision and draw their lines, before Anthony was ruled to be just off by the tiniest of margins.

When asked if football has been made better or worse by VAR, Parker provided a lengthy and detailed response.

“Me, personally, without,” he said. “That's just my view and that's always been my view.

“I remember when it first came in, when I was manager of Fulham, I sensed that. I think I was quoted in saying, however long ago that was, four odd years ago, I was like, you need to just be really, really careful of what a game of football is and the emotion of the game.

“I sensed it really early on that, you know, just the raw emotion of the game in terms of celebrations at the weekend.

“There's only so many experiences you can go through when you come to a game of football that don't leave scars. And what I mean by that is that for every goal that you score, you celebrate and then it gets pulled back. For every fan that cheers and then gets pulled back, there's a scar that's left, which is disappointment. And so that's the main reason.

“Of course, the weekend added to that is the decision of what you come to, the length of time, which I hear everyone saying: ‘oh, the length of time, it needs to be quicker’.

“I think the facts are, however long it takes, you just need to get it right.

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“At the weekend, for instance, it’s an on-field decision, which wasn't handball. It's then taken five minutes to determine whether it is a handball. That alone suggests to me that maybe we're not sure and that then becomes subjective.

“You're now just passing on to another guy that's going to make a decision on what he perceives, whether it is or not. Again, my understanding is if it's not conclusive, then really you go with an on-field decision.

“I've seen two frames. I've seen the frame that VAR are looking at. I think there's one part where you could say maybe it touches his arm. There's another part that says, no, it doesn't look like it touches his arm.

“More to your point, me personally, no, I don't think VAR is something that I like. But that's the way we're going.

“That's the modern-day life in general, isn't it? Everyone wants perfection and everyone wants to finely tune everything to the finest and finest of details.

“With that, you lose something. For sure, you lose something. And the clinicalness of the world and how we want everything in the world, everyone wants answers, everyone wants solutions, everyone wants to look perfect or everything to be perfect.

“Sometimes there's something quite nice, really nice. Maybe it's just me and the way I am, but something that's quite nice about not being perfect sometimes. That's just the way I feel.”

Parker even raised concerns about the methodology that led to Anthony being ruled offside for the first Burnley goal to be disallowed.

“It's just more complicated,” he added. “Literally, you're just checking everything.

“On the offside, dig a little bit deeper. Just because it's a robot or it's...how do we know? Do you know what I mean?

“We've been given an offside, which is like...how do we really know? We don't know where the frame's been taken from.

“Some clips you see, it looks like as if one clip is a certain...we just get an image behind it and we all just go: ‘okay, it's offside’.”

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