The VAR decision in Newcastle United's draw with Crystal Palace was absolutely ridiculous. The whole point of VAR in my opinion was to help the referees on difficult decision.
All it has basically done in this instance...nobody has helped him. There's only two outcomes, it's either a goal or a penalty when you see it. I've listened to ex-referees on TV who have tried to give a reason for it, and they either said it was a goal or a penalty.
They said the thing they have missed at Stockley Park was the push, they might have been concentrating on the foul from Joe Willock. But surely when you see Willock running into the goalkeeper the way he did, surely you need to find the reason why he did it? It's an absolutely awful decision.
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I've been there myself as a manager, you ask for the referee's advisors and the PGMOL for their opinions on things that have happened, and they can come back and apologise and say they've got it wrong. But ultimately you can not keep apologising, especially when you're dealing with the Premier League because the difference in the money and the finances are so huge for different positions in the league.
Who knows, those two points come the end of the season might stop Newcastle getting into Europe. You hope not, but you never know. They've been denied a win as there's no doubt in my mind if Newcastle had scored, it would have been a completely different game because Palace would have had to come out.
Newcastle should have won it really, they missed some good chances and the 'keeper has made some good saves. But they scored a perfectly legitimate goal and as I said, the worst-case scenario would have been a penalty. It's a really tough one for Eddie, the staff and his players, and especially since with the apology, it leaves an even worse taste in the mouth.
I've been on both sides, I've had decisions go for my team that should never have happened where the opposition have scored a perfectly legitimate goal or had a penalty not given. I've been on it the other way where we've had a blatant goal ruled out.
The frustrating thing is you contact the boss of the referees that night, and you send the footage down and all of the information from your analysts. The Monday morning, you get a call saying we apologise, we messed up. Everyone makes mistakes, but that's why VAR was brought in wasn't it? To try and help the officials avoid these mistakes.
Eddie's message to his squad should be to just focus, don't make it be an excuse for you. Don't feel sorry for yourselves, the saying is decisions equal themselves out over the season. So over the coming weeks and months, Newcastle are owed a fair few decisions.
It's not about feeling sorry for yourselves, you did your jobs right and it hasn't worked out. We just have to keep that focus and belief, we don't use this as an excuse to deliver sub-standard performances.
Football is a ruthless game, no-one feels sorry for you outside of your supporters and the people inside your club. Nobody outside of Newcastle United is going to give them sympathy, but you've got to be focused and ready to go.
From a managerial point of view, it would have been about getting that first league win since the start of the season. That would have been massive, it's not easy to pick up three points in the Premier League and even though their performances on the whole have been good, they weren't probably as good as they were against Palace but they did deserve to win the game without a doubt.
They could easily be sitting with five more points at least. That makes a massive difference to where they are now. Eddie will be focusing on the next match and getting the team ready, and I think they will be fine in that department.
It depends on what type of characters you've got, and the characters in the group Eddie has brought together don't seem to use excuses. They just seem to get on with things, they haven't used excuses since he came through the door.
They could have felt sorry for themselves before the Palace game after what happened at Anfield, but they didn't. They went out and started the game on the front foot against a team playing very deep, and they created numerous chances.
I don't think there's going to be that issue of them feeling sorry for themselves. They've lost three points in the last two games which has been debatable from refereeing decisions, but they seem to be really strong mentally and ready for the challenge.
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