WELL there were shocks galore in the FA Cup at the weekend… and more controversy over the VAR - video assistant referee - system.

I’ve said it in this column before but I’m really not that interested in the powers that be introducing this kind of technology to the game because I think it will suck the life out of it.

On Saturday at Huddersfield Town’s John Smith’s Stadium we saw Manchester United score through Juan Mata only for the VAR ref to disallow it, after some delay, for offside.

The system is meant to work smoothly with the video ref able to see instantly the positioning of both defender and attacker.

The trouble is, the lines tracing the position of the defender and Mata that we saw looked like they’d been drawn by a toddler!

We’re told that Neil Swarbrick, the referee sat hundreds of miles away in little more than a cupboard, saw different pictures to the ones released to BT Sport but even so, it looked extremely shoddy for the people watching at home!

In the end it took until just into the second half for everyone on the BT Sport team to conclude that Mata’s knee was fractionally offside.

The correct decision maybe, but those ultra-marginal decisions are all part of the game surely?

The linesman kept his flag down in real time because he couldn’t – and wouldn’t – have been able to judge at that speed whether a sticking out knee was ahead of the defender when the ball was played.

I know we’ve been on the wrong end of some decisions in the last couple of seasons and maybe VAR would have worked some of those out.

But we’d all be living a duller life if that was the case wouldn’t we?

Football is all about entertainment and emotion but VAR is sucking that out of the sport we all love.

The system isn’t fit for purpose at the minute so it shouldn’t be in use.

The Clarets return to action against Southampton on Saturday and this must surely be the game we pick up that elusive first three points since December.

We’ve had some good news on the injury front with Tom Heaton and Chris Wood both featuring in a game this week so maybe the clouds are beginning to lift a little.

Neither ourselves or Southampton have been in great form so something has got to give.

I just hope we don’t fall foul of a dodgy refereeing decision or my calls for VAR to be abandoned are going to look pretty stupid!