Pep Guardiola's Trust Issues with VAR and the Focus on Victory
Pep Guardiola has lived with VAR long enough to know one thing: the only real antidote is the scoreboard.
The Manchester City manager, still bristling at what he views as decisive errors in the 2024 and 2025 FA Cup finals, has watched the latest storm from a distance as Arsenal’s title charge and West Ham’s survival fight collided with technology at the weekend. A long, anxious VAR delay ended with West Ham denied a stoppage-time equaliser against Arsenal – a call that sent shockwaves through both ends of the Premier League table.
Guardiola’s response is not to join the chorus of outrage. It is to double down on an old mantra: make the margin of victory so clear that no referee, and no video screen, can touch it.
“We lost the two finals of the FA Cup because the referees didn’t do their jobs they should do, even the VAR,” he said, his irritation with those Wembley defeats still obvious. “When this happens it is because we have to do better, not the referees or VAR.”
He has not forgotten the details. Two years ago at Wembley, City were stunned 2-1 by Manchester United. Guardiola felt his side should have had two penalties, both for challenges on Erling Haaland – one by Lisandro Martinez, another by Kobbie Mainoo. The calls never came. The trophy went to the red half of Manchester.
Last season brought another jolt under the arch. City fell to Crystal Palace in a shock FA Cup final defeat that turned Dean Henderson into the unlikely hero. The Palace goalkeeper saved a penalty and commanded his area, but the game might have flipped if he had been sent off for handling outside his box. He stayed on. City paid the price.
Those moments have hardened Guardiola’s stance. He does not pretend to trust the system.
“I never trust anything since I arrived a long time ago,” he said. “Always I learned you have to 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.”
That line matters. Flip of a coin. In a title race where every decision feels loaded, Guardiola is telling his players that outrage is a luxury they cannot afford.
The latest VAR controversy, with West Ham denied against Arsenal, has only sharpened the edges of the run-in. Arsenal sit top. City chase. Every camera angle, every offside line, every slow-motion replay feels like it could tilt the season.
Guardiola wants none of that noise near his dressing room.
“You have to do better and better for yourself, and that is focusing on Crystal Palace for us,” he said, looking ahead to Wednesday’s meeting at the Etihad. City know a win over Palace would slice Arsenal’s lead to two points and keep the pressure firmly on Mikel Arteta’s side.
“Of course it is not in our hands in the Premier League,” Guardiola admitted. “Always I say to the players, ‘Do it, do it, do it better’. 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.”
So the message is clear. No crusade against referees. No public campaign against VAR. Just an insistence that City must play with such authority that the coin never needs to be tossed.
Palace know what it feels like to hurt City on a big stage. Guardiola knows it too. On Wednesday night, with the title race stretched tight and VAR lurking over every key moment, he wants his team to make sure the argument ends long before the replays begin.
