Charlie Austin deserves credit for his passion interview

It seems that VAR has been a big topic of discussion over the weekend. Southampton striker Charlie Austin gave a frankly quite brilliant interview after his side were denied a perfectly good goal in Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Watford.

Then Chelsea centre-back Antonio Rudiger called for VAR after he went down holding his face claiming that 5ft nothing Everton winger Bernard had butted him. In reality, the Brazilian would have needed a stepladder to reach his face.

While the German may have deserved the ridicule he received for throwing himself on the floor, he does have a point about VAR. Maybe a VAR referee would have dismissed him for bad acting, though. In addition, Chelsea may have also lost Jorginho if VAR had been in place, as his tackle on Gylfi Sigurdsson was a sending-off offence.

Austin interview extraordinary

I have to say I have never seen anything like Charlie Austin’s interview on Saturday. The incident he referred to in his very honest interview happened at 1-0 to the Saints, who have struggled wins of late.

Austin struck the ball from the edge of the area and his effort struck a Watford defender before beating Ben Foster in the visitor’s goal. However, the officials decided to disallow the goal, as they believed the ball had deflected off Saints defender Maya Yoshida who was standing in an offside position but not interfering with play.

The officials took a long time to decide on the wrong decision, which obviously incensed everybody connected with the home side, especially the goalscorer.

While some will say that Austin was being unprofessional in his comments after the game, the striker deserves credit for telling the truth. It was refreshing to see a footballer show some real emotion, instead of towing the party line for fear of action from the FA.

Premier League officials getting worse

The fact that no English referees were selected for the summer’s World Cup in Russia rather hinted at the lack of quality amongst Premier League officials.

Premier League officials are only human, but they seem to be missing big incidents every game. In the case of the Chelsea-Everton game three or four key incidents. Austin states in his interview that the officials need help to get key decisions correct.

VAR may be in its infancy, but it could help out Premier League officials. In an ideal world, the officials would just be competent at their job. Unfortunately, at the minute the English top-flight seems to have a raft of referees who constantly miss big talking points.

The decision could cost Southampton dearly

Southampton haven’t been able to buy a win this season. The Saints really have struggled for victories. The decision to disallow the south coast team their second goal could prove costly at the end of the season.

The Saints are currently odds of 4/ 1 to suffer relegation this season. They are not one of the three favourites to suffer the drop to the Championship. However, such is their form of late they could be in for a relegation battle.

A win on Saturday would have lifted the gloom around the club and sent the Saints into their next game against Fulham in good heart, as Austin stated in his interview. Instead, Watford scored a late equaliser and the team from the south coast have now gone eight top-flight games without a win.

According to media reports from yesterday from various news outlets, the Premier League are in talks with their member clubs about bringing in VAR in the near future. Something has to be done, as the officials on the pitch are simply not good enough to make the correct decisions.

Is it time for the Premier League to bring in VAR?