Nottingham Forest’s high-flying season has meant that any VAR issues have hurt less than they perhaps did last season, but the errors in the system are still frustrating.
Even in Forest’s 7-0 win against Brighton on Saturday, Richard Keys spotted a VAR mistake in a Chris Wood goal which thankfully didn’t cost Forest in the end.
VAR missed a red card in Forest’s win over Southampton in January too, further diluting the trust in the decision-making that could eventually cost Forest points this season in the race for European football.
Casting our minds back to last season, Forest released a statement criticising VAR for missing seemingly blatant penalties in a 2-0 defeat to Everton amidst a tight relegation battle, a controversy that impacted Nuno Espirito Santo so much that Forest started adapting training to combat VAR.
It looks as if VAR is set to dominate the discourse of Forest fans once more, though, as details of another major error have arisen, linking back to the clash against Southampton.
Major VAR error confirmed in Nottingham Forest vs Southampton
Forest beat Southampton 3-2 in a game that became tighter than it ought to have been, with Espirito Santo’s side 3-0 up at halftime after Elliot Anderson scored his first Forest goal.
Southampton grabbed a goal back but Nikola Milenkovic powered home Forest’s fourth, which was controversially ruled out by VAR.
It seemed strange at the time, but a report by BBC Sport confirmed that the VAR intervention was incorrect after publishing the findings of the Key Match Incidents panel.
On the decision, the panel said: “The VAR advised referee Anthony Taylor to disallow the goal as Forest striker Chris Wood came from an offside position and impeded the Southampton defenders to challenge for the ball. Wood did not touch the ball. An independent panel found the goal should have been given.”
Whilst offering a level of clarity for the Forest coaching staff that their squad scored another legitimate goal, this finding only serves to add frustration to an ever-difficult relationship between Forest and the match officials.
However, the finding is even more frustrating given how VAR and the Premier League handled the controversial decision at the time.
The Premier League stood by the Nikola Milenkovic VAR error at the time
This season, the Premier League has introduced an X account that aims to add valuable context to the VAR decisions that confuse fans in the City Ground and across the country.
At the time, the match centre account concurred with the new report in saying that Chris Wood interfered with the play from an offside position, but it has taken 17 days to eventually contradict this decision in the Key Match Incidents report.
Yan Bednarek has just scored Southampton’s first goal to cut the lead down to two, which was eventually cut further in stoppage time, making the Forest squad see out a tight game that should’ve been comfortably sealed with Milenkovic’s goal.
A Forest fan was seen offering Anthony Taylor a bank card in a hilarious gesture while the referee looked over the Milenkovic decision, highlighting that the legitimate means such as the X account are doing nothing to persuade fans of the reliability of VAR.
The Key Match Incidents report is a welcome addition, but it doesn’t change the fact that the Southampton game could’ve gone either way after the mistake, with the potential outrage if Forest didn’t win that game potentially eclipsing that of the Everton vitriol last season.
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