Guardiola's Strong Stance on VAR Amid Title Race

Pep Guardiola has never been shy about his feelings on VAR. This week, with the title race crackling and every decision magnified, he stripped it back to its bluntest form.

"I never trust anything since they (VAR) arrived a long time ago," he said. No caveats. No softening. Just a manager at the sharp end of elite football making it clear he wants his season decided on the grass, not on a screen in Stockley Park.

Title race on a knife-edge

The comments came in the wake of a weekend that shifted the mood, if not yet the mathematics, of the Premier League race.

Arsenal, under relentless internal pressure to stay perfect, edged past West Ham 1-0. Deep into stoppage time, Callum Wilson thought he had dragged the Hammers level. The away end exploded. The title race, for a few seconds, seemed to tilt.

Then came the long pause.

VAR official Darren England advised referee Chris Kavanagh to head to the monitor. The replay showed Pablo Felipe colliding with David Raya in the build-up. Foul, said the referee. Goal disallowed. Arsenal survived, and with it preserved a five-point lead at the top.

City still have a game in hand, but the margins are suffocatingly small. Every frame, every freeze, every angle now feels like it carries the weight of a season.

Guardiola wants no part of that.

‘A flip of a coin’

His stance on the technology is not new, but the language has hardened with experience.

"Always I learned you have do it better, do it better, be in a position to do it better because you blame yourself with what you have to do, because [VAR] is a flip of a coin," he said, turning the spotlight firmly back on his own dressing room.

For him, the only antidote to the chaos of interpretation is control. Not of referees. Of performance.

He has drilled that message into every squad he has led. Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Manchester City – the mantra has not changed: do it better. Score the extra goal. Make the tackle earlier. Close the space faster. Leave as little as possible to the judgement of others.

“One is a job for the institutions that rule the competition,” he added, drawing a clear line. Let the authorities argue over protocols and processes. He will obsess over Crystal Palace away on Wednesday and another FA Cup final date with Chelsea after that.

Scars from Wembley

Guardiola’s distrust is rooted in specific flashpoints, not vague grievance. He carries those Wembley moments with him.

“We lost the two finals of the FA Cup because the referees didn’t do their jobs they should do, even the VAR. When this happens it is because we have to do better, not the referees or VAR,” he said.

In 2024, with City chasing another domestic trophy, he watched Erling Haaland go down under a challenge from Lisandro Martinez and saw no penalty given. Later in that same 2-1 defeat to Manchester United, he felt Haaland was being held by Kobbie Mainoo at a corner. Again, nothing.

A year on, a different opponent, a similar fury. In the 2025 final, Crystal Palace goalkeeper Dean Henderson appeared to handle the ball outside his area. No card, no free-kick, no intervention from the booth.

These are not the kind of details managers forget. They become reference points, fuel, and in Guardiola’s case, evidence that the technology has not delivered the certainty it promised.

Tunnel vision on Palace and Chelsea

Now comes another critical stretch. A midweek trip to Crystal Palace, awkward and potentially treacherous, before the spotlight swings back to Wembley and a meeting with Chelsea in the FA Cup final.

Guardiola knows the noise around VAR will not fade. Every tight offside, every tussle in the box, every goalkeeper collision will be replayed and debated. He wants his players to shut it out.

“Always when I said to the players when I arrived here and Bayern Munich and Barcelona – do it, do it, do it better,” he said, returning to that core belief in self-reliance. “I always learned that when you lose the focus, you are in a dangerous situation. The only thing we can do is do it better, that is only in your control. You have to do better and better for yourself, and that is focusing on Crystal Palace for us.”

The message is ruthless in its simplicity. Don’t wait for the screen to save you. Don’t expect the referee to rescue you. Decide it yourself.

In a title race where a single decision might yet define a champion, Guardiola is betting everything on the one thing he trusts: his team’s ability to make VAR irrelevant.