Roy Keane was his usual straight-talking self when giving his thoughts on Luis Diaz’s wrongly disallowed goal in Liverpool’s 2-1 defeat to Tottenham recently.
The Irishman was speaking on the Stick to Football podcast when he gave his take on the incidents in north London from the weekend before last.
The 52-year-old described the decision to chalk off the goal for offside as ‘crazy’ and also took aim at those involved in the discussion surrounding the VAR review of the incident, the audio of which was made public three days after the match.
Keane said: “Can I make one point about the VAR when they showed the recording of the Liverpool [disallowed goal] – how casual are people? That was the bit that surprised me, ‘Yeah alright Jim, I’ll have a look, yeah…”
That last comment elicited laughter from his fellow pundits, one of whom jokingly shouted ‘Alright Trig’ a la Del Boy from Only Fools and Horses as if to illustrate the ex-Manchester United captain’s point about the overly informal nature of the VAR conversation.
The Cork native then added: “It was very casual, wasn’t it? That’s the bit that worried me.”
Keane was making a similar point to one from David Ornstein on Sky Sports over the last 24 hours, and they’re both spot-on with their views.
Considering the importance of what’s at stake when incidents are referred for a video review, and that these are professional match officials who are actually at work, the trivial tone of the discussion undermines how crucial a process it is.
It also shows why we should be able to hear the audio from all VAR incidents. It’s a matter of public interest, so those involved shouldn’t get to hide behind a veil of secrecy purely because of a technicality in the FIFA rulebook.
You can view Keane’s comments below (from 34:23), via The Overlap on YouTube: