Mark Langdon: VAR should follow EFL lead and look for new blood

It is said ignorance is bliss, and being at White Hart Lane last week as a supporter certainly gave a different experience to the Premier League's most controversial VAR moment yet.

It must have been a good hour after the game, with the chants about Ange Postecoglou still echoing around the streets of Tottenham High Road, that I saw the Professional Game Match Officials Ltd's apology for erroneously ruling out a Liverpool goal. 

The subsequent discussions around sporting integrity and replays was ill-advised from Liverpool despite their (cough . . .) clear and obvious reasons for grievance at how events played out in north London. 

Liverpool seem to think they are the only team to have been wronged this way, but you only have to go back to February for two human error offside mistakes in the same Premier League weekend. 

Lee Mason drew the line in the wrong place which allowed Brentford to equalise against title-chasing Arsenal, who four days later lost a crucial match at Manchester City which swung the championship race very much in City's favour, and Brighton had a goal disallowed against Crystal Palace when VAR official John Brooks and the Hawk-Eye technology operator placed the offside lines in the wrong place.

Those incidents aren't a million miles off the communication cock-up involving Darren England last weekend.

PGMOL have brought in Howard Webb. They have tried sending referees to pitchside monitors and not sending them to the screens. They have slowed things down and sped them up. They have communicated with supporters and not communicated. They have released the audio and not released the audio – but no matter what they try the process is not improving.

Listening to the audio of the chaotic decision-making at Stockley Park which was released after last weekend's debacle shows communication needs to be much clearer. Check complete must be followed by "give the goal", "disallow the goal" or whatever the decision is to be, but it also left me wondering why VAR officials need to have officiated at a high level to do such a different job. 

This is not a call for 'proper football men' to get involved – almost quite the opposite. As long as you know the laws of the game why can't you do this job? Why does it need to be a team of, for example, Messrs Brooks, Mason and England? 

To be involved in VAR you are not required to do many of the things that puts officials off in the first place. You could be overweight and come from any background so long as you are good at the process. At the moment it feels like a job for the boys to earn a few extra quid, and the approach to who gets these gigs is akin to big-name managers getting another job based on who they know rather than their talent.

And in a week when Mark Hughes was binned off by Bradford, it is refreshing to see new blood being rewarded at the top of the EFL. 

Luke Williams (Notts County), John Mousinho (Portsmouth) and Enzo Maresca (Leicester) sit at the summit of their respective divisions and all are relatively fresh with impressive ideas on how the game should be played. Their average age is 40 and their teams boast a combined average possession of 61 per cent this season.

Ultimately, the whole VAR system could be totally flawed, but if Webb really does want to enforce change he could start by pondering what skills are required to do the job and why is that currently limited to such few people?

Premier League predictions

Wolves v Aston Villa both teams to score 4-6

Villa's seven league games have produced 29 goals and Wolves have only failed to score on the opening weekend when they had six shots on target at Old Trafford to go with the PGMOL apology for the non-award of a blatant penalty.  

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