Ole Gunnar Solskjaer robbed of plaudits by Liverpool, VAR controversy causes chaos, and Mason Mount loses his

I’ve said it before and I will say it again – do not expect VAR to be consistent until everyone is calling it the same thing. It is as simple as that. If half the world are saying VAR like car and the other half are saying V-A-R then how can we reasonably expect the process to work?

It comes from the very top. If Sky and the BBC cannot be bothered to get round a table with BT Sport and come up with a deal that works for everyone, then what is happening to the world?

This has not snuck up on us – we’ve known this day was coming since about 2016, haven’t we? Why are we not better prepared? It is V-A-R all the way.

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And the longer it fails, the more material people like my not-so-good self get – so long may it continue. Someone has to profit from this shambles.

Considering I had already written 95 per cent of this column before Manchester United vs Liverpool kicked off, you can understand why I was doing my VAR drama dance beforehand – and boy, was I rewarded.

We can all agree that United’s recruitment has been poor over the last few years but it’s great to see they’ve finally found a long-term replacement for Howard Webb in Martin Atkinson.

If Atkinson didn’t pick up the Man of the Match award at Old Trafford, VAR certainly did – would be the point of view of those of a Liverpool persuasion, like Jurgen Klopp for example.

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United’s opener was scored after Divock Origi took a tumble after Victor Lindelof snuck up behind him – if he is going to be Mohamed Salah’s main understudy he’s got to nail down winning those fouls better.

Moments later, Sadio Mane hoped to get away with a little bit of basketball and that people would completely forget the new laws of the game and turn a blind eye.

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The VAR drama certainly masked how poor Liverpool were for so much of the game and if they had to turn to the Ox, Naby Keita and Adam Lallana to get a result then maybe they don’t have the squad depth they need – even if Lallana did nick the equaliser in the last ten minutes.

Just think, had United held on then someone might have had to give Ole Gunnar Solskjaer some credit for being half-decent tactically – VAR saved him from that fate, right?

Then take the farce at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as example number two. No, not the 7-2 defeat to Bayern, they’ve moved on since then. I’ve been reliably informed that the four big screens at Spurs are larger than the rest of the Premier League screens combined – so if you are going to flash up the wrong VAR decision then this is certainly the place to do it, right?

Before the game, there were clear murmurings of ‘imagine losing to this rabble’, which tells me the Watford fans were feeling confident ahead of kick-off.

All jokes aside, Watford – bottom of the table and utterly woeful – should have been a great way for Spurs to get back in the saddle following their pre-international break form.

Things looked marginally better when Danny Welbeck kept the Daniel Sturridge flame alight by hobbling off injured (again) after 90 seconds – but Spurs seem determined to inflict actual pain on anyone watching them currently.

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Abdoulaye Doucoure briefly remembered the kind of stuff that made him one of the hotter prospects in English football to give Watford an early lead, a lead that should have been given the opportunity to blossom further had VAR been reminded that they are actually allowed to overturn an on-field penalty decision after Gerard Deulofeu was hockey-stick-hooked to the ground.

You’d have been forgiven for thinking that would have been the worst VAR call of the Premier League day when, in fact, it wasn’t even the worst one in this match.

Dele Alli’s shoulders must start quite far down his arm for that equaliser to stand. Still, Spurs fan can probably call a home 1-1 draw with a side bottom of the table as progress – which says something about their top-four credentials.

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I am not calling Pep Guardiola a fraud but all this talk of him being a revolutionary for playing without two natural central defenders against Crystal Palace is crazy and disrespectful for Unai Emery who has been doing it all season with Shkodran Mustafi and David Luiz.

Given that Palace weren’t likely to see too much of the ball as they were (a) playing at home and (b) playing City, it actually made sense to find a way to get another two ballers on the pitch. And, it kinda worked, didn’t it

City themselves could have pointed to VAR and wondered what was going on – unless a new law has come in where a player can get an instant piggy-back in the penalty area, I am going to suggest that Wilfried Zaha did foul Kevin De Bruyne. And, given the quality of Gary Cahill’s performance again, did Manchester United miss out quite massively by not taking a gamble on him?

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Over at Stamford Bridge, has the Mason Mount bubble finally burst? Will Frank Lampard be putting his star pupil in detention after the Chelsea magic happened after Mount had been hooked? Christian Pulisic came off the bench to replace the youngster and had a hand in the move that saw Callum Hudson-Odoi lay on the winner for Marcos Alonso.

This young Chelsea side can now add ‘character’ to their growing list of accolades. Funny how the Longstaff lads found it trickier against a proper midfield though, eh?

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We haven’t mentioned VAR for at least a paragraph which tells me we need to go to Leicester next.

Now, I am a fan of anything that winds Sean Dyche up, frankly – so seeing Burnley’s ‘equaliser’ chalked off due to some wonderfully experienced defending by Jonny Evans warmed my heart.

Should it have been a goal? Of course, but who cares?

That Vardy account was busy again as it added another goal to it – something that was nailed on to happen as soon as the Burnley fans started their songs.

Meanwhile, Youri Tielemens netted the obligatory screamer from a Leicester midfielder to keep Brent-an Rodgers’ revival on track.

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VAR might have been involved at Villa Park as well because, you know, Aston Villa were playing.

I think Dean Smith is perfectly entitled to wonder what Villa have done to VAR in a previous life as they had yet another perfectly good goal chalked off for something that couldn’t really be classed as a clear and obvious error – yeah, remember that phrase?

However, the Villa are getting used to needing to score at least one more goal than needed to get a result and Matt Targett was on, er, target in injury-time to give them all three points against a very easy-on-the-eye Brighton side.

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You could have also expected Raul Jimenez to have ended goalless on Saturday given VARs applaudable determination to continue his goal drought.

Jimenez had two disallowed before Wolves were given a spot-kick and, given he is the designated penalty taker, there was every chance VAR would have overruled that too.

They didn’t. Jimenez scored, and although Danny Ings has now scored in four consecutive games the Saints haven’t won any of them.

If you were watching the action up at Goodison Park, were you one of the majority who wondered what the hell Bernard was doing cutting back inside? Well, he made idiots of all of us – including the West Ham defence – when he went back the other way again to score the opening goal.

Half of Marco Silva’s battle to keep his job is based around getting the best out of Gylfi Sigurdsson. The Icelandic ace had started every game before this one and contributed zero goals and zero assists.

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Silva dropped him and gave him nine minutes at the end and Gylfi stuck one top bins – problem solved, job saved.

Considering the propensity of both Bournemouth and Norwich to concede goals by the bucketload, this one ending 0-0 might have been the biggest surprise of the weekend.