STOP BLEATING ABOUT VAR BEING UNJUST... THE GAME’S FAIRER NOW

AHEAD of this weekend’s fixtures, five of the top eight clubs in the Premier League table were from the Big Six.

The bottom four clubs were Sheffield United, Fulham, West Bromwich Albion and Burnley.

With the greatest respect to West Brom, Burnley and Fulham, many observers might have tipped three from that quartet to struggle this season.

It is shaping up to be a compelling campaign but one thing is certain.

No one will finish in a position that is not reflective of their performances.

And, in a lot of instances, that finishing position will be reflective of the amount of money the club has spent on players and wages.

There is a lot of talk about fairness in football but is there not an unfairness about a lavishly bankrolled club being able to grossly outspend a rival?

That is for another day.

The ‘injustices’ most seem to be obsessed with at the moment stem from the use of VAR. It is hard to escape punters on phone-ins saying they have had enough of the game... the same punters who call in the following week to demand Solskjaer or whoever gets the sack.

There are those, including players, who simply call for the whole thing to be canned.

Because referees and their assistants never got any flak when cameras and technology proved they were wrong, did they? Oh no.

Imagine the first big howler in a retro, VAR-free world.

Imagine how laid- back everyone would be about it. Television would not highlight the error at all, would it?

For a wealth of reasons, there is no going back. The rest of the world seems to be getting on fine with VAR.

According to its secretary, Lukas Brud, the International Football Association Board – the game’s lawmakers – gets

Fabianski knows in no uncertain terms that he has to stay on his line... but he encroached 20 phone calls from England regarding VAR and its use to every one call it gets from Spain or Germany.

There is not a chance of VAR being ditched by any other league so the Premier League is hardly likely to lead the way. It is here to stay and everyone knows it.

But what people don’t seem to know is that it is a radical change that will take YEARS to refine.

Offside adjudications will not be entirely satisfactory until they are automated, like goal-line technology. And they will be, at some point.

Most seem to agree the law is at the centre of the handball confusion, not VAR, and goalkeepers will adapt to the strict enforcement of the advancement rule.

You could understand David Moyes’s frustrations when Lukas Fabianski was deemed to have encroached when saving Mateusz Klich’s penalty at Elland Road on Friday.

“Surely, the benefit [of any close call] should go to the goalkeeper, he has made the save,” said Moyes.

How is that for the sort of logic that seems to underpin many arguments against VAR?

Fabianski conceded the penalty. The keeper now knows, in no uncertain terms, he has to stay on his line.

If all the world’s football authorities convened and said they did not want VAR to rule on encroachment, then fine.

But until that time, it is not a hard law to abide by.

Don’t break the rules and VAR, to a vastly greater extent than ever before in football, sees you get your just rewards.

And at the end of the season, for all the bleating about VAR, the best will be top and the worst last.

Justice will be done.