Former Leeds United and Manchester City defender Danny Mills has called for changes to VAR after a "bewildering" decision to send Allan off in Everton's win at Goodison Park. The Toffees midfielder was originally shown a yellow card for a late foul on Allan Saint-Maximin, before VAR overturned referee Craig Pawson's decision.
The Magpies themselves have been on the wrong end of a number of dubious VAR calls this season, as recent as the 1-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge. In real time the decision to award Allan a yellow card went unchallenged, but when slowed down using VAR the challenge was reckless.
Former referee Dermott Gallagher believes the call was the right one, but Mills is in disagreement. So much so, that he's called for a major revamp of VAR.
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Mills told Football Insider: “It was a bewildering decision at the time. I hate to say this because I really don’t like the phrase but those who haven’t played the game at that level don’t always understand it.
"I think that can be a huge problem sometimes. When referees say it was this or that, they are refereeing to the letter of the law and there is no actual thought as to what is happening.
“We’ve got to be careful, we seem to go to one extreme to the other with red cards. One week you can get away with it, the next you don’t get away with anything. There’s no consistency whatsoever and that causes the biggest problem.
“This is where referees need to come out and be accountable. Explain some of these decisions, especially the VAR decisions because they take a long time to look at them, they are not heat of the moment decisions made in a blink of an eye without every angle.
“With VAR you’ve seen all the angles, there’s no excuse to get that wrong. It would be very useful if that dialogue between the referee and VAR official was on an open mic.
"If the VAR says ‘I think that’s a red card, you need to go and have a look at it’, the referee won’t want to go against him, they stick together. If we heard that, the language and phrases that they use, they should say ‘I’m not sure, you need to have a look’.”
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