If you think these decisions from Attwell and Pawson are just mistakes, you’re wrong.
Take a look at the list below:
𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐀𝐭𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐥 (𝐑𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐞 / 𝐕𝐀𝐑)
1. Bournemouth 2–2 Man Utd (March 2026): Attwell ignored a clear foul on Amad in the box with no VAR intervention, but later awarded a soft penalty and red card to Maguire for a similar incident. The decisions sparked outrage, with fans and pundits calling them inconsistent and baffling.
2. Burnley vs Man Utd (Jan 2026): Attwell and Pawson disallowed Martínez’s equaliser for minimal contact, later ruled incorrect by the KMI Panel. Fans saw it as another costly and unjust decision by the same duo.
3. Middlesbrough vs Man Utd (FA Cup 2022): As VAR, Attwell allowed a goal despite a clear handball in the build-up, leading to United’s elimination. The incident remains a widely cited example of a major officiating error against the club.
4. Chelsea vs Man Utd (2021): Attwell denied a clear penalty and reportedly ignored VAR advice to avoid controversy. The decision fueled long-term frustration among fans over perceived reluctance to make big calls.
𝐂𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐠 𝐏𝐚𝐰𝐬𝐨𝐧 (𝐑𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐞 / 𝐕𝐀𝐑)
1. Brentford 3–1 Man Utd (Sept 2025): Pawson awarded a penalty but failed to send off Collins for a clear DOGSO offence, with VAR not intervening. The KMI Panel later confirmed it as a major error, with fans believing it impacted the game’s outcome.
I've never felt this much behind as a programmer. The profession is being dramatically refactored as the bits contributed by the programmer are increasingly sparse and between. I have a sense that I could be 10X more powerful if I just properly string together what has become available over the last ~year and a failure to claim the boost feels decidedly like skill issue. There's a new programmable layer of abstraction to master (in addition to the usual layers below) involving agents, subagents, their prompts, contexts, memory, modes, permissions, tools, plugins, skills, hooks, MCP, LSP, slash commands, workflows, IDE integrations, and a need to build an all-encompassing mental model for strengths and pitfalls of fundamentally stochastic, fallible, unintelligible and changing entities suddenly intermingled with what used to be good old fashioned engineering. Clearly some powerful alien tool was handed around except it comes with no manual and everyone has to figure out how to hold it and operate it, while the resulting magnitude 9 earthquake is rocking the profession. Roll up your sleeves to not fall behind.