Resigned to defeat in my personal battle against VAR

It feels like the tide of public opinion is going in a direction that means those of us who have fought the good fight to keep the video assistant referee out of football will end up on the losing side.

But before I finally accept defeat and adjust to life with the grotesque disfigurement of the game I love here’s one final set of observations on this monstrous vandalism of the world’s most popular sport.

FA Cup third-round weekend had a lot to like about it. There were some excellent games, some wonderful performances from triumphant underdogs and the distribution of the fixtures in a series of groups worked really well in enabling the good stories to get the limelight they deserved, which would not have been the case if the majority of them had kicked off at 3pm on Saturday.

Various people on Twitter bemoaned the fact we are no longer obliged to try to follow 28 games that start simultaneously at the traditional time, but I liked the way the games were spaced out, and I was a big fan of the 5.30pm Saturday kick-off for a number of ties, including Palace’s clash with Grimsby, which I attended along with nearly 20,000 others, a fine turnout.

That included more than 5,000 from Humberside, who helped create a wonderful atmosphere, and while their journey home will have ended fairly late, I would not take a lot of persuading that 5.30pm is a better time to start Saturday matches than 3pm.

It enables home fans to do something meaningful with their pre-game time and prevents away supporters from such a brutally early start. It would also be tremendous news for racing in terms of more eyeballs on the action and more turnover.

The atmosphere at Selhurst would have been even better had the visitors not had a player sent off after just three minutes, which quietened the travelling fans for a while.

Andrew Fox originally received a yellow card from arbiter Atkinson for what looked like a pretty nasty challenge on Andros Townsend. While the Palace player was getting patched up Fox was called back over and suddenly the expulsion tool was brandished.

I had originally thought he must have mouthed off to the official but then it emerged the VAR had reviewed the incident and decided Atkinson had not been strict enough, leading to an early bath for Fox.

I had been unaware we were having VAR inflicted on us and, ludicrously, it was used for only those nine matches that were hosted by Premier League clubs.

The dismissal was probably the correct call, but as well as the farcical inconsistency of some ties using VAR and not others not, we also have the anomalous situation whereby the video official can upgrade the yellow Atkinson originally produced to a red on the spot but no action can be taken in post-match probes into incidents where the referee may have been too lenient if he cautioned a player.

Beyond that, there is the issue of delays, which is my main gripe with the system. It was not such a big deal in the Palace game because Townsend was being treated anyway, but had he sprung straight back up, one wonders at what point Fox would have been ordered off, and there was another irksome stoppage the reason for which those of us inside the ground had no idea.

Elsewhere Burnley were about to take a penalty that was reversed, the VAR at Fulham somehow saw fit to validate the on-field ref’s decision to give Fulham an absurdly soft spot-kick against Oldham, and the crowd at Old Trafford had to wait for two minutes to see the hosts awarded a penalty.

And then we had the pantomime of Tottenham’s goal against Chelsea in Tuesday’s first leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final, over which the arguments are still smouldering.

The ball was played over the top, the lino flagged Harry Kane for offside, Kane carried on and was upended by the Chelsea keeper and then we waited and waited to discover how the game would restart.

Play to the whistle, but ignore the flags seems to be the latest bewildering advice, which is likely to lead to some shambolic situations as the whole VAR horror show unfolds.

After a lengthy delay it was decided Kane was onside and had been fouled, and he banged in the spot kick to give Spurs an advantage going into the return leg.

The view we were shown on TV to apparently prove Kane was on was totally inconclusive and the plot thickened when Chelsea produced their own still image that appeared to show Kane was offside.

So instead of clearing these things up, VAR still has the ability to muddy waters and make decisions that are every bit as arbitrary as those made by the match officials, which shows what a disruptive, pointless waste of time it is.

“I like it - it adds to the drama,” claimed Sky co-commentator Alan Smith, while Chris Sutton, who has an uncanny ability to be wrong so many times he offers an opinion on anything, chirped: “I did not like VAR at first...but I quite liked the theatre of the decision-making. It cannot come into the Premier League quickly enough.”

It’s depressing how many people think stopping a game and forcing everyone to wait for a decision that might still not be correct is such a good thing.

And nor, as is widely claimed, will it get quicker. The officials know which buttons to press and it is the deliberation process that takes all the time.

I can’t stand VAR, however much I am told it is great, and dread the day it is foisted upon us on a permanent basis, but that day is clearly coming so I had better try to get used to it.

I ran a Twitter poll yesterday asking people whether they liked VAR, disliked it or were undecided. The approval rate among the 1,112 voters was 53 per cent, with 24 per cent saying they did not rate it while 23 per cent have yet to make up their minds.

And as we have become starkly aware, 53 per cent is more than enough these days to effect a seismic change that is of extremely dubious benefit.

Festival ante-post picture is unusually murky

Is anyone else struggling? We are just nine weeks away from the Cheltenham Festival and I have never been so short of inspiration or confidence this close to the great event.

This has been a funny old jumps season for a variety of reasons and by now it should be possible to have formulated some fairly strong opinions on a number of races. Yet here I am looking around blankly for winners like a half-cut reveller searching for a taxi on New Year’s Eve.

Actually, for ‘funny old’ you can justifiably substitute ‘comparatively disappointing’. The winter game is so marvellous that even a less-than-stellar jumps season is still great, but we are not exactly swimming in dominant existing champions, fulfilled potential or exciting young tyros.

A number of horses for whom we had high hopes (exhibit A: Samcro) have failed to kick on, last year’s stars have, with the honourable exception of the mighty Altior, met with unexpected defeat along the way (Buveur d’Air and Might Bite among them), and a look at the novice races shows the extent to which, in most cases, they have failed to take shape.

And with January and February having become quieter than they used to be in terms of the amount of clues a punter can expect to get, and no sign of the prevailing dry conditions coming to an end any time soon it all adds up to an unusually challenging situation for ante-post punters.

It is 9-2 the field in the Gold Cup, 5-1 in the Ballymore, 6 in the Arkle and the JLT, 13-2 in the Supreme, 7 in the Ryanair and Stayers and 10 in the Triumph, which underlines how tricky things are for those looking to nick a fancy price in advance of the big week.

I am increasingly content to wait until the day itself, when the pain of a late change of plan by trainers has vanished and bookmakers offer tremendously competitive prices and place terms and there are decent special offers wherever you look.

If forced to bet right now, which thankfully I am not, I’d chance a yankee on Lalor (Arkle), Santini (RSA), Tiger Roll (Cross Country) and Native River (Gold Cup), but this will be my quietest ante-post festival in decades, and a lot of punters I speak to are expressing the same view.

Chelsea crazy to let Hudson-Odoi go

It is dangerous to try to form a concrete opinion on a young footballer if you have not seen a lot of them, but pretty much everything I have seen of Callum Hudson-Odoi suggests Chelsea would be mad to let him go.

The young wide forward carried an impressive threat against Spurs at Wembley and has impressed in the other fleeting moments in which he has been allowed to play in the first team, yet rumour persists that he is on his way to Bayern Munich for around £35m.

That is the same amount Chelsea paid Leicester for Danny Drinkwater and £5m less than they splashed out on last season’s undisputed worst Premier League signing Tiemoue Bakayoko.

In the Blues’ defence, the player himself seems eager to move, but surely a new deal and the guarantee of more playing time would help persuade this immense young talent to commit his future to the Bridge?

There has never been a club with a stranger recruitment, retention and loaning strategy than Chelsea.

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