'Newcastle vs Arsenal ref announcement was pointless and farcical – end VAR gimmick now'

It is fair to say Simon Hooper will probably not be rushing to the next open mic night in his local any time soon. Mind you, if he ever does take to the stage again, his audience might be slightly more easy to please than the 52,000 who turned St James’ Park into bedlam on Wednesday night. It might have been equipment malfunction or, more likely, might just have been the din that was the soundtrack to a thunderous occasion, but when Hooper addressed his audience a few minutes into this second leg, only a few of his words were audible. To the people inside St James’ Park, that is. Not you at home. You could probably hear every word.

But anyhow, even in the cacophony of noise, we had a good idea of what he was going to say anyway because when it takes so much time for VAR to decide whether someone is offside or not, it normally ends up with an offside decision. And everyone knew that VAR was checking for a possible offside before Isak had finished so spectacularly. So, Hooper’s microphone moment was pointless and farcical. It was introduced as a trial by the PGMOL in the Carabao Cup before the first legs of the semi-finals last month.

The trial should be over. The sooner they ditch this gimmick, the better. Audible explanations of decisions are helpful in sports such as rugby and American football because the rules can be complex. In football, they are not. Put the decision on a big screen, if you want. But we really don’t need to hear from the ref. When Hooper made the charades-signal for television, we knew VAR’s decision. And what the game does not need is an extra few seconds taken up by a ref and a microphone. The Premier League is talking about introducing the referee’s explanations. Really? What the Premier League needs is semi-automated offside technology. At last.

Thankfully, Hooper was only centre-stage for a moment and the rest of the night belonged to Newcastle United and their fans. Quite simply, they rose to this occasion in fine style and inflicted a defeat on Arsenal that might have some physical repercussions for Mikel Arteta ’s side. For Newcastle, it is on to Wembley and a chance to end that long wait for a trophy. And hopefully, on the biggest of all, we won’t be hearing anything from the referee.

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