Pep Guardiola's Philosophy on VAR and Title Race Pressure
Pep Guardiola has never hidden his distaste for VAR. This week, with the title race crackling and Arsenal riding the wave of another contentious call, he stripped it back to the core of his philosophy.
“I never trust anything since they (VAR) arrived a long time ago,” he said. No dressing it up. No diplomatic sidestep. Just a blunt assessment from a manager who has lived the sharp end of English football’s technological age.
Arsenal’s break, City’s warning
The spark came at the weekend. Arsenal, already locked in a tight duel with Manchester City, squeezed past West Ham 1-0. Deep into stoppage time, the London Stadium erupted when Callum Wilson bundled the ball home, only for the celebrations to stall and then die under the cold pause of a VAR review.
Darren England, on duty in the VAR booth, sent referee Chris Kavanagh to the pitchside monitor. After a long look, Kavanagh ruled that Pablo Felipe had fouled David Raya in the build-up. Goal disallowed. Arsenal’s lead at the top stretched to five points.
City still have a game in hand, but the psychological weight of that decision was obvious. A rival clinging on, rescued by a screen and a slow-motion replay. Guardiola, though, refused to let the narrative drift towards conspiracy or grievance.
“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,” he said, hammering home the same message to his players: control what you can, ignore the rest.
“One is a job for the institutions that rule the competition,” he added, drawing a clear line. Let the authorities argue about protocols and angles. His job is the football.
Scars from Wembley
Guardiola’s mistrust is not theoretical. It is built on Wembley scars.
“We lost the two finals of the FA Cup because the referees didn’t do their jobs they should do, even the VAR,” he insisted, the frustration still close to the surface.
In the 2024 FA Cup final, he watched Erling Haaland hit the deck under a challenge from Lisandro Martinez and waited for the whistle that never came. Later in that same 2-1 defeat to Manchester United, he saw Haaland grappled by Kobbie Mainoo at a corner and again saw no intervention. Two key moments, no penalty, no lifeline.
Then came 2025. Different opponent, same anger. Crystal Palace goalkeeper Dean Henderson appeared to handle outside his area, a flashpoint that on another day might change a final. Nothing given. No card, no free-kick, no rescue from Stockley Park.
For a coach obsessed with marginal gains, those moments cut deep. Yet he uses them as fuel, not an excuse.
“When this happens it is because we have to do better, not the referees or VAR,” he said. The blame, in his eyes, always circles back to the dressing room, not the officials’ room.
Tunnel vision on Crystal Palace and Chelsea
The schedule offers Guardiola no time to brood. City travel to Crystal Palace on Wednesday, a fixture loaded with its own hazards, before their focus snaps back to another FA Cup final, this time against Chelsea.
Slip once, and Arsenal’s five-point cushion starts to look more like a wall than a gap.
Guardiola has responded by narrowing his players’ world. No noise, no distractions, no obsession with the last freeze-frame from a VAR monitor.
“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, repeating a mantra that has followed him through three great clubs and countless trophies. “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 title race will rumble on, and VAR will almost certainly stride back into the spotlight before May is out. Guardiola has made his position plain. He will not trust the technology, he will not rely on it, and he will not allow his squad to lean on it as an alibi.
If City are to hunt down Mikel Arteta’s side, they will have to do it Guardiola’s way: not by waiting for a call from Stockley Park, but by making sure the flip of that coin never matters.
