Video assistant referees remain divisive across the Premier League, summed up in one line from Burnley\u2019s Kyle Walker: “I like it when it helps us out, and I don\u2019t like it when it doesn\u2019t help us out.” That pragmatic view captures why VAR has produced wildly different outcomes for clubs with less than a fifth of the campaign to play.<\/p>\n
The league\u2019s top five and bottom three would be unchanged if every VAR-reviewed goal were ignored, but points totals shift in notable ways. Arsenal\u2019s nine-point lead over Manchester City would shrink to seven in a VAR-less world, “giving Pep Guardiola\u2019s side the chance to move just one behind the Gunners were they to win their game in hand and the meeting between the two teams at the Etihad in April.” Arsenal benefited from VAR on two occasions this season: Viktor Gy\u00f6keres was awarded a penalty in the December win at Everton, a match the Premier League later agreed should also have included an Everton spot kick, and VAR confirmed Piero Hincapi\u00e9 was onside for Wolves\u2019 second in a 2\u20132 draw in February.<\/p>\n
Erling Haaland has defended the system: “I think VAR has helped me even more because you get the decision, it\u2019s as simple as that,” and VAR helped Haaland win a penalty after Diego G\u00f3mez\u2019s foul in a 1\u20131 draw with Brighton.<\/p>\n
Manchester United are the curious case whose points remain unchanged on aggregate, the result of two decisions canceling each other out. Fulham\u2019s Samu Chukwueze had a strike ruled out for offside at Old Trafford while United led 2\u20130, then Benjamin \u0160e\u0161ko\u2019s stoppage-time winner settled the game. Later, Casemiro had an effort ruled out against West Ham that might have altered conclusions in a VAR-free scenario.<\/p>\n
Liverpool would be three points better off without VAR, while Chelsea have gained five points from video interventions, largely in the season\u2019s opening weeks. “We have been very affected by refereeing decisions,” Bournemouth\u2019s Andoni Iraola lamented after two matches with Chelsea featured overturned decisions. Brighton would climb from 10th to sixth without VAR, denied three wins and seven points, including a November penalty that was overturned and several retroactive spot kicks awarded to their opponents. Danny Welbeck even described the toll of narrow offside calls after a goal was disallowed and said it affected how he celebrated a later strike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
VAR has altered points in the 2025\/26 table, helping some clubs while penalising others unfairly…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9913,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,172],"tags":[1505,1162,317],"class_list":["post-9914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-epl","tag-accountability","tag-analytics","tag-benjamin-sesko"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}