Another weekend, another VAR debate for Brighton fans – but Everton’s penalty was not a controversy

In failing to win yet another seemingly winnable home game, this time against struggling Everton, the Albion found themselves embroiled in another VAR situation five minutes before half-time on Saturday after Joel Veltman had appeared to handle the ball inside the penalty area.

Bognor-based referee Tim Robinson immediately awarded the spot kick before being advised to go and look at again on the pitchside monitor, subsequently sticking with his original decision.

Full disclosure, I know Tim personally ,his brother is a long time friend of mine – but that has no bearing on the content of this week’s column.

Unfortunately, regardless of the dreaded VAR involvement, it was a penalty, a fact backed up by Veltman in his post-match interview on BBC Radio Sussex.

Unlike some of the other refereeing and VAR decisions Brighton have been on the end of, there was no real controversy on this one. Flip it round and if it had happened at the other end we’d have all been screaming ‘penalty, ref’.

Another telling stat is the North Stand Chat poll on the incident, with nearly 60% of people voting agreeing with match official.

Yet that hasn’t stopped Tim getting some quite vicious and distasteful stick on social media.

Perhaps we, the royal we as in the fans, should be getting increasingly hot under the collar about something else – as yet more points have been dropped at home to a perceivably ‘lesser’ side, this time all three.

So it’s the three draws against Ipswich, Wolves and Southampton and the defeats by Palace and now Everton: 12 points dropped at home against relegation fodder, not good, however competent your spin doctor is.

It feels even worse when you go back six days and Brighton had played Manchester United off the park.

At times watching the Albion is like reading Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, so we go again – this time at surprise package Nottingham Forest, although they got a thumping at Bournemouth at the weekend.

Rumours of Albion dressing room unrest are just that, idle internet gossip; the camp is relatively happy, but the home blips are extremely irritating, not only to the fans but the management and players.

The Albion history books tell us of a visit to Forest, then reigning European Champions, in November 1979 and the subsequent 1-0 win courtesy of a first half strike by the late and much missed Gerry Ryan provided a catalyst for Alan Mullery’s men, occupying 22nd place in the league and seemingly heading for relegation, to turn their season around.

It’s February not November on Saturday and the European Cup is a dim and distant memory for Forest, but can lightning, tenuous link or not, strike twice in the same place?