Arsenal would still be top of the Premier League if VAR hadn't interfered with matches this season, a new study reveals.
VAR has taken football by storm in recent years, with an initiative designed to make matches fairer and help referee decisions - or limit mistakes - by dividing opinion splits among fans of the sport.
There have been 84 video assistant referee interventions in the Premier League this season with goals disallowed, penalties awarded and players sent off.
ESPN analyzed the first knockdown of each game and looked at a number of factors to calculate how the results would vary throughout the season, affecting the overall standings.
Factors analyzed include the team's performance at the time of the match, the time of the incident, the xG at the time of the incident, the strength of the team and the impact of the incident. The results are quite striking, with the seasons of several teams being very different in the theoretical standings.
Arsenal will still be top of the table, but will be six points ahead of Manchester City instead of the current eight. However, they will have an extra point on the board.
Tottenham could still have Antonio Conte at the helm and would finish third in the league, ahead of Manchester United, who are said to be eyeing Brighton in fifth, with Newcastle in sixth.
Liverpool will drop to 9th place and 13 places from the top 4, equal to 36 points with Chelsea in 10th place. The famous nine-team group to survive will have six points instead of the current five, although Crystal Palace, who are 12th at the minute, will find themselves 19th and seriously threatened with relegation. .
The Premier League table does not have VAR.
They will join Southampton and Bournemouth in the bottom three, with West Ham, currently 18th in the table, in 13th place, despite being just four points away from the relegation zone.
There will probably be less negative talk about VAR based on how the board looks at the end of the season on May 28.
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