Great pod chaps.
I hadn't thought about the negative about linos not calling offside and letting VAR do it being when a goal isn't scored so ta for that.
To me, the debate around this (both on the pod) misses the point. The AR can flag immediately, but if the ref thinks it's close he can wait before blowing the whistle & (now) use VAR. The pod touches on this. VAR couldn't come into play as the whistle went as soon as the flag went up. One of my favourite World Cup goals was scored like this (albeit pre-VAR)
Issues will arise from players stopping because they see the flag go up. Thomas didn't even try to save that 'goal', he just walked away from goal.
It's the players fault if they stop on a flag.
Thomas stopped on the whistle, which meant that play was actually stopped. The flag means nothing to the players in terms of stopping, really.
As a referee, it would be non-sensical to wave a flag down on a situation like this one, because the AR has so much better of a view of the offside. Offsides are the hardest thing for a referee in the middle to be able to call (I would know, they are the bane of the existence of any local league ref in Cap 1 or below).
The other issue is that if wave this flag down, your AR is now miles out of position, and wouldn't be able to make a call on, for example, if Burns was offside from the pass from Krishna. You'd need to be pretty damn sure that the AR was wrong before waving them down, and you'd usually see it when the AR has flagged for something that can't be given offside like a backpass.
I've got no problem with Conger whistling when the flag went up, it's just unfortunate for him that his AR was wrong in this case.
Yellow Fever - Misery loves company