Dermot Gallagher sheds light on 'tolerance' rule that saw controversial goal given at weekend - Where's this been hiding?

The sooner the offside rule is overhauled, the better. We seem to be spending more and more time debating offside calls lately, and the advent of semi-automated technology hasn't cleared things up at all.

Newcastle United were involved in a controversial VAR decision recently. It was during the win over Manchester City when Ruben Dias was deemed to have been playing Bruno Guimaraes onside before he flicked the ball on for Harvey Barnes to score the winner.

The image shown by the semi-automated technology didn't seem to match up with the live image, namely, the position of Ruben Dias. Newcastle ultimately benefited from that decision, and Dermot Gallagher said on Ref Watch the following Monday that the goal should have stood.

This weekend, we've seen a similar incident where Florian Wirtz was given a goal despite it looking like he was a good few centimetres offside. Again, the semi-automated technology put up an image that didn't seem to match what we were seeing with the live images.

Once again, the incident was reviewed on Sky Sports' Ref Watch, and again, Dermott Gallagher revealed it to be the right decision, but a piece of information came to light during the debate that we don't think many people were aware of.

There is a five-centimetre tolerance in favour of attackers when the lines are drawn for VAR decisions, and this has been in place for four and a half seasons. We'd certainly never heard of this.

Gallagher says it was agreed by all clubs, and even though the Premier League is the only league that uses this tolerance, it was brought in to avoid situations where a player is going to be offside by a toenail. Well, how's that working out for you?

Even with a tolerance in play, a line still has to be drawn somewhere, and there are always going to be controversial decisions under the current definition. All they've done here is open up the possibility that will see one goal given one week and one ruled out the next, despite being almost identical instances.

We need the Arsene Wenger Law to be introduced, which will only deem a player to be offside if they are clearly ahead of the defender. The daylight rule worked well before; this nitpicking by millimetres has been no good for anybody.

What we can't believe is that this has been in place for four and a half years and we're only hearing about it now.