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#2 Game could prove to be a strong advocate for VAR
Paul Tierney had an afternoon to forget in the middle of a what became a controversial and eventful final 20 minutes at St James' Park. The referee was wrong to award Chelsea the penalty to start with and he was also reluctant or maybe blindsided to award a foul by DeAndre Yedlin on Olivier Giroud during the build-up to Newcastle's equalizer.
The overall quality of refereeing on offer was below par as well and it only seemed like Tierney could have done well with a little help from someone watching over his shoulders from the studio.
The VAR remains a distant dream for English football and with almost all of the other top leagues in Europe adopting the system, games like these are expected to make room for strong claims in favour of it.
The complexion of the game could have been completely different with the intervention of VAR but since the ill effect of one wrong decision nullified another equally poor call from the referee, the outcome of the game remained unaffected and this one may even be swept under the mat.
