Let the striker be VAR.

Football is finding its feet again after lockdown and the matches are getting better. My team’s results are encouraging and watching the match yesterday, we are getting back to the old Fergie teams who no matter how many the opponent scored usually scored more.

The one element that has not found its feet – and I am not just referring to after lockdown – is VAR, with a couple of indecipherable decisions this weekend.

All men and women are created equal and all football infractions should be equal. Handball is handball and accidental handball is accidental whoever’s hand the ball hits – attacker or defender. Whoever thought of splitting the offence into two is … well, let’s just say the law is an ass. Only deliberate handball should be penalised and that is it.

As for millmetric perusal of every single goal to see if there is one hair offside is reidiculous. I have said this before and I will say it again. Forward players only have their own eyes to ensure they are onside and if that cannot be determined with the same naked eye then it should be onside. To penalise with such precision when the person being penalised cannot exercise such precision themselves is unfair. I much preferred the rule from some years ago when there had to be clear space between the attacker and defender to be offside.

Conversely, and maybe contraversely, I would be stricter on other offences. For me, football is and always will be about one thing, the scoring of goals. Any form of cheating or of detracting from the ultimate aim of putting the ball in the back of the net I would crack down on.

I so hate the expression “taking one for the team.” It is a professional foul or cheating and should be a red card as used to also be the case some years ago.

The defenders holding on to attackers at corners was leading to more penalties at the beginning of the season but that has now disappeared again. It should be reinstated. If you are holding a player you are cheating.

This is the most contraversial bit tough. Timewasting. I hate any team – my own included – taking the ball to the corner flag. I would want them to be trying to score again not undertaking what is in effect legal obstruction. Also, the keepers that catch the ball and then fall to the floor to waste seconds would get a yellow card from me.

To paraphrase John Virgo, “Score as many goals as you can.”