Andros Townsend has risked the wrath of the Leeds fans on TalkSport (10/11/20 at 7:15 am) following his comments about Patrick Bamford’s offside goal from the weekend.
The Crystal Palace winger admitted that he ‘sympathises’ with Bamford, but he made it clear that ‘you cannot go saying let’s give them a couple of yards’ in regards to Saturday’s controversial decision.
At the time of the call, Palace were winning 1-0 and Leeds felt they had equalised only for Bamford’s arm to be judged in an offside position, even though you cannot score with that part of your body.
But Townsend was pretty clear that VAR needs to be used ‘as a matter of fact’, and although he may be in a camp of very few, he backed the on-field call on the day.
“I sympathise with him, but I am not VAR’s biggest fan, and if you want to use VAR then you have to use it as a matter of fact if you are offside or you are not,” said Townsend.
“If the t-shirt line is the limit then, unfortunately, you have to abide by that. Yes, I sympathise with Bamford and yes it was unfortunate, but it’s offside at the end of the day.
“I am not saying that because it was against Crystal Palace. You cannot go saying let’s give them a yard or let’s give them a couple of yards or let’s give the benefit of the attacker. It has to be offside or not. If you are going to use VAR then you have to give Bamford offside for that goal.”
Going by the rules, it was quite clear that the right call was made but it’s a simple case of changing the rules more than anything.
But supporters would prefer that some common sense is used during these situations because it would allow better decisions to be made.
The biggest problem of all is that more situations like this are bound to happen as the season progresses unless there is a changing of the rule.
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