It’s time to end this madness

It’s wrong to claim, as some are, that VAR is the biggest disaster in Premier League history with no upside to its introduction. Manchester City’s moaning manager Pep Guardiola found a use for it at Anfield last weekend.

The sulking Spaniard could at least avoid talking about his disastrous squad building, defensive coaching and tactics which were as much to blame for the 3-1 defeat at Liverpool as the admittedly hopeless officiating on and off the field.

It’s easy to be sympathetic to City and their boss when our best official – the gum-chewing, robotic Michael Oliver (right) – makes such a bad decision and it isn’t then overturned by his colleague monitoring a set of screens 200 miles away.

But that isn’t enough to not point the finger at Guardiola for wasting so many millions on terrible defenders like John Stones and Benjamin Mendy and then asking a third-choice left-back in Angelino to try to mark Mo Salah.

Such a shame though that my hope that the biggest match of the Premier League season so far would be free of controversy. That hope lasted all of five minutes thanks to Oliver and his chums

Defenders now presumably have permission to block crosses with arms out wide. Except we all know the same incident becomes a penalty if Liverpool are the team attacking the Kop End even with the same referee.

My major misgiving about the increased use of technology was always the inability of our officials to apply laws consistently.

Don’t blame VAR as the evidence is being delivered as promised, but those sitting in judgement are making our football become a laughing stock in the eyes of the world.

Someone needs to explain to me why the controversy of the opening two Liverpool goals was cleared up in seconds and yet the pictures ‘proving’ Mo Salah was onside by a centimetre didn’t get made public for another 20 minutes?

It’s almost as though they were desperately looking for a picture to suit their narrative.

Compare and contrast that with the ludicrous decision to deny Sheffield United a goal for offside the day before at Spurs.

It took close to four minutes to clear that one up in favour of the bigger club and yet some parts of TV evidence suggested it was still the wrong decision.

Surely if there is still doubt after a couple of minutes you go with the onfield officials?

Anyway it’s easy to complain, but how do we improve it?

Sacking referees chief Mike Riley and replacing him with someone who allows the onfield referee to look at the pitchside monitor to make a final decision would be a good start.

VAR decisions should not be made by Premier League referees. It’s a different skill. Employ people who are not bothered about over-ruling and embarrassing their mates.

And let us hear the conversation as a VAR decision is made and end the need for rushing out unsatisfactory statements that can be picked apart by anyone who has read the Laws.

The madness of its current use needs to end immediately.