It was seen as our saviour. For years, we had been crying out for it. When other leagues adopted it before us, we were incredulous as to why we didn’t have it yet. If I could go back and say something to everyone at that time, it would be, “Be careful what you wish for.”

In the 2018 World Cup it actually worked very well. It was reasonably fast, and the referees on the pitch were very involved. I recall the moment in which Neymar threw himself to the ground with the theatricality of a Year 4 Christmas production, and then looked very pleased with himself as he was miraculously awarded a penalty. Fortunately, the video assistant intervened, and once the referee took a look at the monitor, the decision was quickly overturned. Justice had been done.

And it continued to be done throughout the tournament, and was largely successful in the Champions League the following season. I say largely successful, because of the embarrassment felt by my dad and I when, after celebrating Raheem Sterling’s last-gasp winner against Tottenham in the semi-final as if we had scored the goal ourselves, it was chalked off for a hair’s-breadth offside call in the build up. I can only imagine how hard that must have been to take for the Manchester City players and fans inside the stadium.

But despite this, it was considered to be effective, which, setting aside my Arsenal bias and admiration for Guardiola’s side, it was. So now we were going to have it in the Premier League, one of the last big leagues to get it. It was supposed to be beautiful.

It has not been. Countless times this season, there have been glaring mistakes in the system, and above all, inconsistency. There should be no excuse.

One problem is the way that the on-pitch officials are involved with the decision making process. In short: they aren’t. VAR is the omnipotent judge, a sort of Big Brother if you will, except far more discombobulated to a general degree. If a referee has made a decision to, say, give a penalty, they will have to wait for confirmation of the video assistant, who has no communication with the ref except for “Decision correct” or “Decision incorrect”. In the World Cup, and, a league I watch as frequently as possible, the Bundesliga, the VAR simply questions the decision if necessary and then the referee has the final call. Not so in our league. It’s just, “computer says no.”

Now we come to the brunt of the issue – the decisions themselves. Penalties are one thing. It’s a delicate business, trying to judge whether or not a player going down inside the box was justified or not, or whether an attacker, as was the case when David Luiz clutched at the shirt of Mo Salah earlier on this season, was sufficiently impeded by a defender to warrant a spot-kick, even if they did not fling themselves to the turf as if they have been shot. For the record, although it was harsh, I did agree with the decision to punish Luiz. With other situations, I did not.

But worse than this is offside decisions. And there’s two problems with these situations in the current campaign. First of all, we have the mistakes that VAR have made when judging the calls. Take, for example, Heung-Min Son against Leicester City. He was not offside, as I have attached below.

If any part of him is beyond Jonny Evans in this situation, it is perhaps his upper arm. But this is irrelevant anyway, as the arm, surprisingly, is not a ball-playing part of the body, and only a ball-playing part of the body can actually be offside. So this was, to put it quite simply, robbery.

Even if they got this right, and even if they got right every single offside call ever, there would still be a problem. No longer can you celebrate goals. I remember McGoldrick’s potential equaliser against Tottenham for Sheffield United. Lundstrum’s big toe was deemed to be offside in the build up, and, technically, technically, it was. But this isn’t fair. It takes the passion out of the game. If you can’t wheel away in celebration, confident that your goal is valid, where does that leave us? Yes, okay, it’s good that the rules are being followed, but are these rules really worth sacrificing the passion? I certainly don’t believe so. The game would collapse if we went down that road.

I don’t have a plan to improve VAR, other than to scrap it completely. I honestly hope that happens, because otherwise, we’re going to lose the Beauty of the Beautiful Game.