I just don’t get the point of VAR anymore. I never wanted it in the first place, but I just hate the fact that all the brilliant raw emotion has been removed from the game while we forensically analyze every tiny frame of slo-mo. We’re not better off for it. Just bring in semi-auto offside, which is cut-and-dry, and let the coaches have one challenge per half or per game for anything that might be utterly and wildly obvious. Allowing VAR to intervene whenever they want has ruined it.

Honestly I’ll be surprised if he keeps his job after this season

No excuse for people in the room to see something and then just make it up as they go along

His job is basically to allow the referees to be so bad it generates outrage clicks and he gets a show out of it, but not so bad that it leads to change and negatively affects him and his mates. Luckily for him, he has a lot of wriggle room since fans are all so tribal and every time there’s a ridiculous decision, there’s always enough fans happy enough that the team they dislike got screwed that they’ll be happy to support the current setup. Until the next week where their team are screwed over and their rivals are too busy gloating.

As someone has said for PGMOL to work the head should be outside england and especially Manchester based referees

We need a team of, say, New Zealand ex rugby players with a proven disinterest in football, and a passion for rules and fairness. Any other sport or nationality, really. Just not British prima donnas who have been threaded through our sport like knotweed for decades.