As a specialist in penalty kicks, well on how to miss them anyway, I was staggered by the importance of all the spot-kick drama at the weekend. At Stamford Bridge we had more excitement than anywhere else from 12 yards, but it was contagious around the country.First of all, Raphinha showed us his version of a Jorginho special, and to be fair it was much better than a pale imitation. Our number 5 wasn’t to be beaten however as he stepped up, under huge pressure once again, to show everyone how exactly to do the hop, skip and score better than anyone else in the business. After his equaliser against Manchester United from the spot, the pressure was cranked up another level by the lateness of the winner against Leeds United.At the top of the table, penalties rained down. Liverpool’s winner by Mo Salah, Cristiano Ronaldo’s winner for Man United and Man City’s only goal by Raheem Sterling all went to show how close it is at the moment a good deal of the time, and how important being given penalty kicks is. And just how important not being given them is too.

At Anfield, Steven Gerrard bemoaned the lack of penalty kick for his Villa side when Danny Ings leg was clipped by Alisson’s hand in the box, while Salah got a fairly soft one right in front of the Kop. I looked and listened closely for a sign of irony in Stevie Gee’s voice but couldn’t detect it. Surely he must have known that every non-Liverpool player in the country who has ever played at Anfield, and indeed every away fan who has watched his team there, were shouting the same thing - ‘you mean you didn’t know that sort of thing happens at Anfield, you hadn’t spotted that in your 17 years there?’I like and admire Steven and thought he was a world-class player who is well on his way to being a top coach, but honestly Stevie, surely it was worth a line about seeing it from the other side for once.

Liverpool were the better team having played nowhere near their best and the same could be said for Manchester City who hosted Wolves, they were not at their brilliant best. Even with 10 men and away from home I thought the visitors deserved something out of the game. They certainly didn’t deserve to be down to 10 men. The first booking when viewed closely seemed a genuine attempt for the ball that wasn’t dangerous and hardly touched the opponent.The point I am getting at just now is that it is so close in these games that just too many are being decided by marginal or subjective refereeing decisions. This isn’t bias against the officials. Let’s just say that one of our penalties might have been given in another age.The important thing is that if there is a tight decision the authorities seem to be in danger of disappearing down another different rabbit hole. VAR is there to help the referee, but now the thinking has turned to the VAR operators parked in some soulless office just outside London having all the power. They are deciding whether the referee has made a ‘big enough’ mistake to warrant him looking at it again on a monitor at the ground. Not just a mistake.The interpretation of the rules changed over the summer, and I suspect they will change again in the coming years. Referees going over to have a look should not be considered a crime against anyone’s judgement, just a natural part of the game. The way it is going now, almost every time the ref goes over it is because he has obviously got it wildly wrong. This is not too far away from the VAR team refereeing by proxy. They are making the big decisions on whether the referee gets another look to see what he thinks, and they have decided they like that power and aren’t keen to let it go.

I still want the referee involved in all the big decisions; I don’t want them taken totally out of his hands in this way. This is important stuff because this league campaign is looking very tight indeed. The big three juggernaut teams are hurtling along down the motorway side by side towards the finishing line. The last thing we want is for the decisions as to who crosses the line first all taken by officials who are in a booth miles away from the action. VAR is useful and we will never go back to the days when it wasn’t used, but we must make sure they haven’t got the nuances wrong. Let the referees look when there is any question on a big decision.Oddly enough it didn’t jump out at me that much at the weekend as it did on Sunday when the rule makers effectively decided who would win the Grand Prix championship this season. I am no great petrol head, but even I was engrossed by the Hamilton v Verstappen battle as it went into the last five laps. Then suddenly there was a crash, some jiggery pokery with the rules that allowed the restart to happen with Hamilton’s 10-second cushion gone, a new set of soft tyres on the Red Bull’s wheels and all the cars between the two main protagonists magically removed from the equation.These rules may or may not have been followed correctly and to the letter but they underlined that when sport is finally decided by an arbitrary judge, one step removed from the action, especially after a year’s worth of competition, it is extremely unsatisfying.The penalties are fine. I mean the 12-yard ones, not the ones the motor manufacturers get for trying to sneak an F15 fighter engine into an F1 car, but I just do not want the season to be defined in the end by one of these decisions, especially in the following type of case.

Referee doesn’t give crucial penalty. The VAR feel it is not a truly obvious mistake and so agree that the referee shouldn’t be allowed to examine it himself, even though everyone watching agrees it WAS a pen and should have been given even if it wasn’t ‘blatantly’ clear. I have seen a couple this season where, had the referee been given the chance to see it, he would have given it. VAR is here to help get things right, that is the point! Could you imagine if the Premier League season was decided in that way? Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes might have been angry, but a cheated football stadium is on another level.Let the referees see the action and let them decide. And while you are at it, let the fans in the stadium see the footage on the big screens too. The fans have travelled, paid their money, sat in the cold and are a huge part of the spectacle of the game so they should be given that respect. It will help with understanding if you make them more involved instead of just one or two guys hiding in warm a booth miles away making all the calls.Surely the football authorities can organise this if they can organise the draw for the Champions League. Oh actually now you say that…