- Everton have faced multiple refereeing controversies this season.
- Opened their campaign with a contentious penalty decision.
- The Toffees have not had VAR work in their favour… not once.
Everton’s disappointing end to the season saw them miss out on an opportunity to secure a return to European football for the first time since 2017.
Performances from the Blues during the run-in were unacceptable, and questions have been raised over the futures of several players and manager David Moyes.
However, the Toffees have also had their fair share of poor refereeing go against them, which did not help in the race for Europe.
Moyes’ men were wrongly denied a penalty in their penultimate home match against Manchester City, with that being just one of several decisions that did not go in their favour.
Everton did not get a single advantageous VAR decision
It cannot be denied that Everton lost out on Europe down to insufficient quality, which sent them to a deserved 13th placed finish.
But the Toffees did not have VAR on their side this season.
The men in royal blue were the only side in the division to not have a VAR decision go in their favour over the course of the 2025-26 campaign, according to the BBC.
On top of this, they, along with Bournemouth, were the only two sides not to have a single opposition goal ruled out by VAR.
Due to the fact Everton have suffered from poor refereeing on multiple occasions this season, the safety net of a video assistant is not making a difference for their affairs, and the club will want more action on the standard of officiating – instead of apologies.
Can Everton blame poor officiating?
Ultimately, Moyes and has side will want to move on from their 2025-26 campaign.
They will take positives from bright individual performances, yet vast improvement is needed, and the run-in spotlighted this heavily.
Getting tied in the ‘ifs, buts, and maybes’ of whether the season would have gone better if a certain decision had gone their way will not do much good when concerning the progression of the club.
But with the sport being based on extremely fine margins, perhaps there is a view that to maintain positivity, had a single decision helped them in the season, then this could have sent the team down a much different path.
It cannot be said for sure that with help from a VAR decision, the Blues would be celebrating an upcoming European tour, but it might just have given them that additional which was evidently missing across season.
