Very much highlights the problem with refereeing and VAR. Junior refs advance through the ranks based on senior refs marking their performances. If the VAR is junior to the on field ref then he basically has to tell some one who could be pivotal to his career they've made a mistake. If there is going to be a VAR, and I really wish there wasn't, it should only be done by recently retired refs.
Made me laugh when they were pinching yards for set pieces in their own half. They only did it to get under our skin and break our concentration. One time when our players complained about it they wasted nearly a minute moving the ball and changing who was going to take it
Not even Lahoz would have come up with that performance last night. The offences for which a direct free kick is mandatory were just random. Fuckin' random at best. The LotG make no difference between a foul in the area and one outside it, and yet refs have for years, ever since we've had wall to wall punditry and video recall, ignored fouls in the area for which they readily blow anywhere else. It's cheating, simple, straightforward, cheating. The misapplication of the LotG is, along with standard time-wasting, one of the major blights on the game. Try and engage anyone at FIFA, UEFA, our own FArce, PiGMOL, any whistling wanker about this and you'll be lucky to get a wry smile out of them.
We all moan about that against a team that want to time waste , which if the ref did something about it would waste more time.
I hope we employ similar shithousery over there