Michael Owen has defended VAR by hailing 'hundreds and hundreds' of correct decisions following at fury at Liverpool.
The former England striker, who scored 159 goals for the Reds between 1996 and 2004, reckons more good than bad has come as a result of the use of the technology. Owen's view comes after VAR Darren England failed to correct an offside call that cost Luis Diaz a goal against Tottenham.
Owen, 43, has picked out a recent game he watched as a reason why VAR needs to stick around – while insisting that it will only improve as time goes on. Speaking to Ace Odds, Owen said: "I think that VAR will be absolutely slick and brilliant in years to come, but as I said earlier, you look at cricket, you look at rugby, they're all disasters for the first year or two, problems, changes need to be made, so it's only following a normal pattern. It will get better.
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"And you could argue as well, it's very hard to defend something when it's so raw and so fresh in the memory. But there's been, yes, a load of mistakes, but there's also been hundreds and hundreds of decisions that have been corrected that otherwise wouldn't have been.
"I was commentating on a game or working in the studio on a Brighton game when they got beat the other day by Athens. And honestly, if there wasn't VAR in that game, people would've been throwing things at their telly."
Brighton lost 3-2 at home to AEK Athens in their Europa League opener with Joao Pedro netting twice from the spot. Owen noticed that they weren't given by the referee.
He added: "I mean, virtually every big decision was wrong. Brighton got given two penalties that were the most blatant penalties, even in real time.
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"He didn't even need a replay. And the referee didn't give anything and then had to change his mind over and over and over again.
"I mean, it was farcical. And if we didn't have VAR, people would be screaming saying, we need this, we need VAR, we need VAR. And that was only a week or so ago.
"It's under pressure at the moment because of a huge, big decision that went wrong. And obviously it's had a few decisions in the past, but it's going to clean up the game in the future.
"I think people have just gotta try to use patience. They are humans at the end of the day trying. It's not the technology that's wrong, it's a couple of decisions. So I do think with patience it will get there."
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Jurgen Klopp had called for their 2-1 defeat at Tottenham to be replayed after the damning audio was released by the PGMOL.
However, Premier League bosses have been adamant that a replay would not be considered and is not a possibility under their rules, despite VAR failing to overturn an incorrect offside call.
The Premier League’s handbook does outline provisions for league matches to be replayed, under rule L.18/W.51, but only for a breach of rules, such as a club fielding an ineligible player in a game, which was not the case at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
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