Football has been vandalised - it just can't go on like this

What is the point of analysing football any more, of carefully assessing form, comparative styles and injury news?

What is the point of discussing football any more, engaging in healthy debate with friends whose views may differ from yours?

Most importantly, what is the point of watching football any more? A match used to offer a much-needed 90-minute break from the stresses of real life, a wonderful, free-flowing form of escapism that at its worst helped pass the time and at its best filled you with joy and admiration.

But a lifelong love of the game is going up in smoke. Football has been vandalised, ruined, and stripped of its heart and soul. It has been horrifically disfigured and I hate it.

The result used mostly to be decided by a variety of qualities: skill, bravery, perseverance, tactical shrewdness, determination and teamwork.

Sometimes it was affected by luck, good or bad, but it was no less great for that.

Now, however, it is too often decided by the nauseating twin terrors of the introduction of the video assistant referee and the insane, despicable adaptations of the handball law.

These two outrages have combined to turn the greatest sport of all into a grotesque, random mess that will soon cause it to die unless action is taken.

I was going to add that those responsible for foisting these two monstrosities on us deserve endless scorn, but first it is necessary to identify who those people are.

Yes, the bodies responsible for changing the laws of the game and enforcing new interpretations carry a large share of responsibility for the destruction of football, but this has been a classic case of being careful what you wish for, and the blame seeps out in all directions.

It started with managers blaming refereeing decisions for their teams’ bad results, and extended to the media companies who gave these unjust rants publicity and employed pundits to repeat the accusations that officiating standards were not high enough.

Supporters themselves, all too ready to blame refs, were also largely in favour of the use of video replays, although not many people called for the handball rules to be changed from perfectly functional safeguards against genuine foul play to the utter shambles they are now.

We were promised an end to controversies, but the reality is contentious decisions have increased dismally and dramatically.

So that is how we have reached this point. What now? Things clearly need to change, because while some people have meekly accepted the woeful new state of play and a small number of others weirdly believe things are better now, the vast majority of those who love football are something between mildly unhappy and downright furious to the point they are no longer interested.

It was comforting to see a Twitter poll by respected football writer Oliver Kay reveal that 85.8 per cent of the 32,743 respondents said football was better without VAR, and that shows, along with endless anecdotal evidence, that the alterations that have been made in recent years are very much for the worse.

But the process of returning football to its former glory will need something other than the stubborn fools who decided all this was a good idea to swallow their pride and change their minds. That is not going to happen.

There is an organic route back to the blissful days before people started using absurd phrases like “clear and obvious” (they mean the same thing - choose one or the other), and it involves disgruntled supporters and subscribers one by one drifting away to watch rugby or Netflix or build model railways.

I have no doubt this has already begun to happen. I know lots of people who watch far fewer matches than they used to or seldom bother at all.

I am one such person. I still put myself through the traumas and occasional triumphs of watching Palace, and if two of the bigger clubs in the Premier League are doing battle I will probably tune in.

But I am no longer prepared to invest time and hope into contests that have an unacceptably high likelihood of being decided by a ball accidentally hitting a defender’s hand or the preposterous pantomime of a load of coloured lines being painstakingly drawn across a blurred image of some limbs in close proximity.

Managers can tweak their formations with great skill, players can perform extraordinary tricks, and keepers can pull off astonishing saves, but none matter when it is now so easy to concede a penalty by simply possessing arms.

Nobody benefits, even the teams who are awarded these ridiculous spot-kicks. They and their fans know full well that these things do indeed even themselves out in the course of time and that the random hand of VAR will deal them a bad outcome sooner or later.

If TV audiences melt away in significant numbers the penny will eventually drop with broadcasters and clubs that there is a problem and that action must be taken.

Far better for fans to take control of this situation and demonstrate their displeasure, in the way French people do if the government pulls a stroke they do not approve of.

It was great to see how swift, concerted action brought the pay-per-view caper to a swift halt and a similar thing should happen to kill VAR and reverse handball rules for good.

Choose games not to watch or, when crowds can return, attend. Petition the FA and Premier League. Threaten to cancel subscriptions.

We have heard countless times since grounds have been forced to close that football is nothing without the fans and that should in itself galvanise the 85.8 per cent to realise they have the power to end this hell.

I long for the day we go back to letting brilliant linesmen decide what is and isn’t offside and for balls to make accidental contact with defenders’ arms without triggering a long stoppage while someone decides whether to award a pen.

This is how it needs to be. There is no partial solution. Football was brilliant as it was. It is now extremely missable and that is a genuine crying shame.

Santa could get sack before the first Premier League manager does

Here we are in December and the axe has yet to swing. All 20 managers who began the season in charge are still in charge but that must change soon.

With most teams having played more than a quarter of their league matches the current favourite at around 2-1 to be the first for the exit is Chris Wilder, whose Sheffield United have a solitary point to show from their abysmal start to the campaign.

Wilder, who was so universally admired for steering the Blades to ninth place last term, has been afflicted by a chronic case of second-season syndrome that has made last term’s successes seem all the more extraordinary.

Because of all he has done for the club he will be given more time than most managers would after such a nightmare run of results, but nobody gets eternal immunity from the sack and he needs to get his players to start winning immediately if those who backed him at between 20-1 and 35-1 before the season began are to be denied a handsome payout.

Wilder can take a degree of hope from the fact only two of United’s nine league defeats were by more than one goal, and they certainly created abundant chances in the most recent setback, at West Brom, so perhaps this fine manager can spark a revival and save his job.

If you backed Mikel Arteta at 80-1 before a ball was kicked you are entitled to be extremely pleased with things but also slightly puzzled that he is still 10-1 despite Arsenal’s poor start to the season, which has produced 13 points from ten games and offered little to suggest they are in a false position in 14th place.

Arteta looks the part, talks well, and oversaw victory in the FA Cup final, but he has enjoyed what must be the longest honeymoon in football history and sooner or later the heat will be on, because this looks a bang average Arsenal team. All those who called for Wenger’s head must be wondering what they were playing at.

If I was given a free bet now I might split it between Sean Dyche and Roy Hodgson, both of whom are currently around 14-1. Dyche’s Burnley edged out Hodgson’s Palace recently but, while they used to be able to intersperse poor performances with enough gritty wins to survive, they look increasingly like a Championship club and Dyche would be excused for getting out before his magnificent spell in charge turns sour.

Hodgson, meanwhile, faces an increasingly unhappy fanbase despite having done so well to keep the Eagles in the top flight since taking over three years ago, and should they fail to get anything from this weekend’s trip to the Hawthorns the club will be under what could prove to be intolerable pressure to replace him, which would be an error.

But this has been a fascinating market to follow and there may well be one or two further changes of favourite before the first sacking finally takes place.

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