I had to watch the game properly before writing this post and I have to say that while obviously I don't think we should have lost, there is an argument for saying we shouldn't have won also. But I saw things yesterday that are really positive, especially after going down to ten men.
First, we didn't look bad and everyone looked interested. I know that isn't the most positive thing to write, but by that I mean we looked like a team and that is important and we haven't always. And the Premier League is harder and you don't start looking like a team just because you have eleven players.
Sure, there might be one or three that I'm not sure are Premier League players but at most teams at out level, there are players that would look good in the Championship or another country and not so good here. But then I revert back to the team element. That carries points and means something.
And I write this with 10% of the season behind us and us sitting in the bottom three. But remember, Dean Smith is my manager and I remember last season, the one before that and the many that came before also.
But this wouldn't be a post about the match yesterday if I didn't mention the goal that wasn't given. And it was a goal. I've watched in 30 times and Jack didn't dive. Guilbert was booked for what happened to Jack earlier in the match, so how can it have been that Jack dived.
Now, we can't get away from the fact we have been told by the Premier League that the referee blew his whistle for simulation, so the game had been stopped. I for one can't confirm this, as I've not seen a replay of the goal that also shows the referee, but if we assume that happened, then it doesn't matter if it was for simulation or a foul, the whistle was blown. So the bottom line is if the ref has blown his whistle, the goal was never going to stand anyway. But John McGinn in the video below suggests there was no whistle.
So you can easily argue that this isn't even a VAR decision and just a poor referee decision. And yesterday, there were a few bad decision from the referee. And you have to ask the question; do you want a physical person on the pitch or not. And I think I speak for everyone when I say we want a referee on the pitch, but we want better referees. We want referees that are consistent.
Yesterday, the referee wasn't consistent and VAR had nothing to do with that. But I don't like VAR and yesterday, is just another reason why.