“This is a just a disallowed goal. Tottenham are just being biased as usual, otherwise, they would have been heavily trashed by Man City”

Temperatures were running high in the Soccer Friday studio, with a popular pundit, Paul Merson furious at Paul Tierney over his take on VAR.

VAR is back on the agenda as a major topic of discussion following the horrendous error to rule out Bob goal for Man City in the 1-0 defeat l Tottenham on Friday. VAR Darren England failed to overturn the incorrect on-field decision to rule out Bob’s goal, forcing the PGMOL to apologise and release the audio.

Instead of a goal being awarded, the match resumed with a free-kick to Spurs.

During a discussion on Soccer Friday, Merson suggested that the match should have been stopped to award Manchester City a deserved goal.

Paul Merson in conversation ahead of a game

Paul Merson went off at Paul Tierney who suggested players “don’t know the game” by saying referees are “all scared” to get in trouble and “no one’s going to die” if a Man City game was stopped after a wrong VAR call.

Bob scored a legitimate goal during the game, but VAR ruled it out for offside.

The VAR official had evidence that Bob was on side, but upheld the original decision, which he thought was a goal, rather than offside.

Merson was then left outraged as he replied: ‘For the sake of it? For the sake of it? What do you mean for the sake of it? You’re playing Liverpool against Tottenham, one of the biggest games and you’re saying for the sake of it.

‘There’s no law. No one is going to die so stop the game. You’re all scared. You’re all like “Oh my god I’m going to get in trouble”. Stop the game. Stop the game’.

Presenter Simon Thomas then urged Merson to calm down before the former striker added: ‘It’s typical you’ve not played the game,’ while Dean repeated ‘you can’t change the law’ multiple times.

Merson then went off at Dean, suggesting the game should be able to be stopped to rectify the mistake.

“For the sake of it? For the sake of it? What do you mean for the sake of it? You’re playing Man City vs Tottenham, one of the biggest games and you’re saying for the sake of it?” Merson said.

“There’s no law, no one’s going to die, so stop the game, nothing’s going to happen, you’re all scared, you’re all like ‘oh my God, I’m going to get in trouble’, stop the game and then take the circumstances.”

Tierney then largely continued to state Merson didn’t know the law, and that the game cannot be stopped.

Merson obviously knows full well the game can’t be stopped once it’s restarted, but it’s not an issue of not knowing the law, rather why can’t the game be stopped to rectify the decision?

Surely that’s better than asking for an entire game to be replayed, having the VAR official taken off a weekend of games and then every Manchester City game for the rest of the season.

Sure it might stunt the flow of the game and be a little bit confusing at first, but at least parity would be restored.

Unless Tottenham were literally through on goal about to score when it was taken back, they’d surely be ok with the fact the right decision was being given, aware they had conceded a legitimate goal, and that was just being rectified.