Six more matches that must be replayed if Liverpool’s Jürgen Klopp gets his way over VAR

In the immediate aftermath of the VAR meltdown that led to Luis Díaz’s perfectly good goal being disallowed at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, it was tempting to praise Jürgen Klopp for his unusually measured reaction to an evident (and in this case legitimately absurd) officiating error. It would have been wasted praise, however, given that it didn’t take him long to demand the Premier League force the game to be replayed, which may go down as one of the worst ideas in the history of the sport. And there is plenty of competition on that front.

It goes without saying that if the Premier League were to cave in – mercifully unlikely – we’d have demands for replays on an almost weekly basis. It would be open season on referees, the already groaning fixture schedule would need to be expanded to three matches a week just to take the strain, and the sense of injustice that already exists for at least one set of fans after every game (usually both, of course) would grow exponentially and uncontrollably. Yes, this was an especially gigantic clanger, and it opens up a ton of questions about the future of VAR. But no, awarding replays is not a good idea. The precedent it would set is genuinely unthinkable.

Anyway, partly to highlight the absurdity of Klopp’s demands and partly out of sheer boredom, we’ve picked out a few games from the past that would, if he had his way, need to be given a go-over as well. It would be quite a feat to get all of the players involved out of retirement (a feat of necromancy, in some sad cases) to get the replays sorted, but in the name of justice, it must apparently be done.

Aston Villa v Sheffield United 2020

We don’t have to go all that far back for the last time the technology completely imploded – and while we don’t yet know the ramifications of Spurs picking up all three points against Liverpool last Saturday, they can’t be much bigger than they were when the goal-line tech failed and caused a Sheffield United goal to be ignored back in the pandemic-delayed tail end of the 2019/2020 season.

Most of you probably remember it perfectly well, but just in case – Oliver Norwood’s free-kick floated all the way over the box and indeed over everyone except for Aston Villa goalkeeper Ørjan Nyland, who just about clawed it in, but only after he had quite clearly dragged it over the goal line. For some reason, the goal-line tech failed to register it so the referees never received a signal to award a goal, play resumed and everyone involved lost their mind once they saw the replays. Hawkeye’s excuse boiled down to there being people in between the ball and the sensors, which you would have thought would have been considered as a possible problem before everyone became completely reliant on the machinery involved, but apparently not.

The game ended 0-0 – but had the goal stood and the Blades gone on to win 1-0, Aston Villa would have been relegated on goal difference. Instead, they stayed up and Bournemouth cruelly went down by a single point. When you consider the footballing and financial ramifications of relegation from the top tier, it’s amazing even more wasn’t made of the fact that a football team were booted out of the Premier League solely because a ref’s watch didn’t go beep when it should have.

Anyway, a replay shouldn’t prove too tough to sort out. Everyone involved is still playing (even unused substitute Phil Jagielka, at 41 years of age, hasn’t technically retired, not that he has a club) but we might need to wait for Tyrone Mings to recover from the horrible injury he sustained on the opening day of this season. Once that’s done, we can replay the game, and potentially start up a new timeline where Eddie Howe’s Bournemouth stays up and he never becomes Newcastle manager, and where Villa go down and Unai Emery doesn’t lead them on their recent charge up the division. Perhaps we should replay the entire season, just to be safe – it was all a bit of a mess with coronavirus anyway, and I’m sure nobody would mind. Liverpool won the title, of course, but I imagine Klopp would be OK having to play for it all over again for the sake of truth and justice.

Manchester United v Tottenham Hotspur 2005

To be fair to goal-line technology, it’s not like things were necessarily perfect before it was introduced and we had to rely on the eyesight of assistant referees – something which cost Spurs a memorable win at Old Trafford back in January 2005.

In the dying moments of the game, United stopper Roy Carroll was caught off his line by Portuguese midfielder Pedro Mendes, who sent a lob arcing high up into the Salford sky. The Northern Irishman got back in time, only to clumsily spill the ball something like a metre over the goal line before clawing it back out. Against all odds, the officials didn’t notice a thing, and the score remained 0-0.

Now, it must be said that the consequences were fairly minimal. United would still have finished third if they lost a point, Spurs would still have been stuck in mid-table anonymity with an extra two. But then, the same could be true of Tottenham’s game against Liverpool, so we’ll have to dig out the phone book and get the band back together for this one.

And to be fair, it could be quite fun seeing what Rio Ferdinand and Paul Scholes can do after a decade or so in the TV studio, right? Besides, it’s hard to believe that Noé Pamarot can possibly be too busy. Might take a bit of money to persuade Cristiano Ronaldo to discard his Saudi contract for long enough to get the game on, admittedly, but a fair outcome is priceless, as Klopp didn’t say.

England v West Germany 1966

Of course, if we take Klopp’s concept to its logical conclusion, we have to go back a long way to right the many wrongs in footballing history, irrevocably changing everything that comes later. And that may well include stripping England of their one World Cup title, given the dubious circumstances under which one of Sir Geoff Hurst’s goals was scored…

The famous “Russian linesman” (who was actually from Azerbaijan and had the national stadium in Baku named after him) gave England’s third goal despite many observers and the few camera angles available querying whether Hurst’s effort had actually crossed the line. Had it not stood, West Germany may not have been caught so far up the pitch when Hurst burst through on goal for his legendary hat-trick sealing strike, people may not have been on the pitch, and it really might not have been all over. It might have gone to penalties. Against Germany. We know how that one ends.

Sadly, many of the players involved are no longer with us, so Klopp really has forced a grotesque and unnatural spectacle upon us – perhaps, for decency’s sake, we can hold it behind closed doors. The better news is that a now likely World Cup-less England do stand a chance of making the final in 1986 given that Hand of God goal forces a replay of the semi-final against Argentina, too, so swings and roundabouts. Admittedly, that one will be need to be behind closed doors too. We miss you, Diego.

Anyway, the knock-on effects from this cavalcade of replayed England matches could have any number of unforseen outcomes. Maybe the English never win the World Cup, grow less confident as a people, and Brexit never happens. Maybe Darren England is never born and Luis Díaz’s goal ends up standing. Perhaps Andy Carroll turns out to be a good signing for Liverpool with a fully functional muscular structure. You never know. Klopp’s quantum butterfly has flapped its wings and now a storm has started all over football history, and anything could happen.

France v Republic of Ireland 2009

Theirry Henry is remembered around the world for his effortless on-field grace, his silky skills and his dazzling ability to score from practically anywhere on the pitch. Except in Ireland, where he is remembered as a cheating little toe-rag who conned a whole nation out of their rightful place at the World Cup.

It was extra time of the second leg of the qualifying play-off between the two nations in Paris, with a place in South Africa on the line - and with the game firmly in the balance, Florent Malouda played the ball over the top and seemingly out of reach of the Arsenal man, only for Henry to reach out and clearly control it with his hand, twice, before squaring it for William Gallas to score and send France through.

And so it would be that perhaps Ireland would win the replay, justice would finally be served, and we can slot them into Group A of the 2010 World Cup. We’d have to debate whether to redo the entire thing or simply present Ireland with France’s results, but we can guess which they’d pick given that France lost to both Mexico and South Africa on their way to a humiliating early exit. Which might be all that Ireland could have managed too, in fairness – there’s only so much you can ask of a national team that had Sean St. Ledger in the starting line-up.

Watford v Reading 2008

One of the most infamous “ghost goals” in English football history surely bears correction. A Royals corner was lobbed up into the box during their Championship tie, a relatively unremarkable goalmouth scramble ensued, and the ball was eventually cleared after a header had hit the bar. All pretty normal, until the referee paused proceedings to have a chat with his assistant – and promptly awarded a goal.

Replays showed, quite clearly, that there had been no point at which any person in possession of reasonable eyesight and their wits could possibly have thought a goal might have occurred, and yet it came to pass that a goal was given and everyone watching was utterly befuddled. To this day, nobody really knows at what point the linesman thought the goal had been scored, or by whom. It remains a great unsolved mystery of the game.

Now, in fairness, the result ended up having precisely zero impact on the final Championship table, so perhaps there’s no real need to drag Kevin Doyle out of retirement for this one. Besides, he’s already lined up for a match in Paris, and we can only ask so much. But there is one historical injustice that still needs to be corrected – given that nobody knew who was meant to have “scored”, the goal was arbitrarily put down in the record books as a John Eustace own goal. Which is obscenely unfair, given that he was one of the few players who didn’t even appear to be in the box at the time. Nobody scored, but Eustace somehow scored even less than everybody else did. Bet that still rankles a little.

The entire second half of Brighton & Hove Albion’s 2022/23 season

Finally, we shouldn’t let this article pass without mention of the fact that the Luis Díaz ghost goal wasn’t the first gigantic VAR foul-up to occur in the Premier League, and indeed there have been more than a few grovelling formal apologies dished out already by the PGMOL after various gaffes – not least to Brighton, who received not one, not even two, but three apologies in the space of just three months last season.

Firstly for a clear red-card challenge by Fabinho when they played Liverpool, which was missed and which Klopp was no doubt quietly appalled by at the time. Then it was a disallowed goal against moderately bitter rivals Crystal Palace, when VAR failed to draw the lines correctly to adjudicate whether Pervis Estupiñán was offside. Then finally, in a defeat to Spurs, they missed out on a penalty when Pierre-Emile Højbjerg dragged Kaoru Mitoma down in the box.

OK, so there’s a maximum of four more points that Brighton could have got here if we went back and replayed the lot, and that wouldn’t actually affect their league position at all. But at least we only have to roll the clock back a few months. On the other hand… can anyone be bothered, really? Aren’t refereeing mistakes, where it’s through the filter of VAR or down on Hackney Marshes on a Sunday morning, just a part of the game? Let’s just leave the past where it lies and move on with grace when we’re on the wrong end of a cock-up, eh, Jürgen?