{"id":625972,"date":"2026-09-16T02:48:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T02:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/625972\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T02:48:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T02:48:14","slug":"efl-cup-reading-1-2-brentford-keith-andrews-says-var-is-stopping-referees-making-decisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/625972\/","title":{"rendered":"EFL Cup – Reading 1-2 Brentford: Keith Andrews says VAR is stopping referees making decisions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brentford<\/a> head coach Keith Andrews believes the video assistant referee (VAR) is preventing referees from making decisions in matches. <\/p>\n

As his Bees progressed to the Carabao Cup fourth round with a battling 2-1 win at League One side Reading<\/a>, Andrews said he was not happy with the officiating. <\/p>\n

Reading defender Paudie O’Connor had a goal for a first-half overhead kick ruled out by referee Tom Nield for a high boot, prompting Royals boss Leam Richardson to say it was “possibly in the top three [wrong] decisions that I’ve seen in my career – and I’ve seen thousands of games and played in hundreds”.<\/p>\n

With no VAR used at this stage of the EFL Cup, Andrews added: “It’s been a tough week for officials as everybody is probably aware. <\/p>\n

“I think we just need to let them ref the game and be human beings and make decisions. <\/p>\n

“We have gone through a period in the game where I feel like they weren’t actually making decisions in both boxes because of the technology we have in the game and I feel like that is a real shame.”<\/p>\n

His comments followed the admission of Pro Ref to an “error of judgement”<\/a> in awarding Erling Haaland’s winning goal for Manchester City in their Premier League encounter at Manchester United<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n

There was intense debate over whether the goal should have been disallowed for City midfielder Enzo Fernandez – who was in an offside position – interfering with play as he dived, attempting to head the ball in a central position before Haaland’s finish.<\/p>\n

Andrews, whose Brentford<\/a> side are seventh in the Premier League, said referees were no longer allowed to “make mistakes”.<\/p>\n

“I always felt as a player, when there was a relationship with an official that was built on respect and being able to speak to each other in a certain way,” he added.<\/p>\n

“We’ve gone away from allowing them to officiate and allowing them to make mistakes and I think it is a real shame. <\/p>\n

“Now they are having to go back to that and it’s not the habits they have had in recent years.”<\/p>\n

On Sunday’s refereeing error in the Manchester derby, Andrews said it was “pretty alarming” Haaland’s goal was allowed to stand. <\/p>\n

“The first thing was whether [Erling] Haaland was offside and then obviously [Enzo] Fernandez was. It’s a shame,” he admitted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brentford head coach Keith Andrews believes the video assistant referee (VAR) is preventing referees from making decisions in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-625972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}