Man United and Erik ten Hag receive stern message from Premier League after visit from chiefs

Manchester United and Erik ten Hag have received a stern message from the Premier League after visits from chiefs this summer.

The Reds won their opening fixture of the new campaign ;ast Friday against Fulham.

According to the Manchester Evening News, the Premier League have asked all of their 20 clubs’ managers and executives to ‘tone down’ their criticism of VAR this season.

It was explained that the League believe that the negativity from managers in interviews, for example, helps breed an environment of negativity around the system.

Since it was introduced in the 2019/20 campaign, VAR has been heavily criticised within the Premier League and there was even a vote to have it terminated last season.

While the Premier League clubs outvoted the decision to abolish VAR by 19 to one, there are still major concerns surrounding the use of the technology.

Semi-automatic offsides will be introduced at some point this season, solving the long delays for close offside calls.

However, the aforementioned report explained that Premier League chiefs have visited all 20 clubs during pre-season to discuss and explain the changes they are making to VAR to players and staff – there will be video examples to show how subjective certain calls can be.

As part of the attempts to improve the performance and perception of the VAR system, the League have asked managers, including Erik ten Hag, to be less critical of the technology this term.

It was further explained that while there is an acceptance that managers will always disagree with subjective calls, the League are aiming to move away from them attempting to claim they don’t understand how the system works.

Ten Hag was regularly critical of VAR last season but argued for the system to remain in the Premier League, with improvements made, when the possibility of it being scrapped was considered.

“I don’t think there is a way back,” he said. “In principle, it makes football more fair. But we have problems. We have to make improvements.”

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