VAR-nock so right to make silent protest

NEIL WARNOCK gets a lot of stick but he is a genuinely lovely man.

On Sunday his Cardiff side were denied a point against Chelsea by a mistaken call from the officials. So he stood, hands on hips, eyeballing them on the final whistle.

It was an amazing stand-off, with the officials mirroring Warnock’s stern pose (above).

It was a clever way for Warnock to say to the referee, ‘I am not going to slag you off but I am just going to stand here and look at you and leave it to your conscience that that goal could contribute to us going down’.

I have not seen anything like it before.

I have seen managers go over and bawl out referees but it is rare to see them stand there as if to say ‘you can’t do me for being intimidating but I am going to show you how disgusted I am’. As long as he doesn’t swear or accuse the referee of wrongdoing, he is OK.

In post-match press conferences a manager can talk about other teams and their players but he can’t talk about the referee and what he thought about a decision even after watching replays.

Managers should be able to speak with honesty, to say publicly that the referee got it wrong.

We could also do with refs explaining the decisions they have made. Often they are more than happy to go on TV once retired.

We would perhaps be more prepared to allow referees a little leeway if they admitted mistakes or at least tried to explain themselves.

Given what happened at Cardiff, when a Cesar Azpilicueta goal (above) that was clearly offside was allowed to stand, does anyone seriously think that VAR should not be introduced immediately?

If anyone thinks that a goal scored by someone miles offside should not be reviewed, then I fail to see how they can be called football fans.