Ian Hart: The Fulham and Burnley VAR decisions shows there is a still a football hierarchy

It actually could have been three out of three, they should have finished off Fulham long before they equalised, they should have finished our chances at Everton but Sunday’s victory against Man City has the Albion faithful chomping at the bit for the visit to Bournemouth when the EPL restarts the weekend after next.

Yet only three weeks in the campaign the spectre of VAR has once again reared up.

Within a few hours on Saturday both Fulham and Burnley learnt the harsh realities of the perceived EPL ‘pecking order’.

VAR scrubbed out a perfectly good Fulham goal at Stamford Bridge, effectively changing the course of the West London Derby, whilst up at Old Trafford later in the afternoon, Burnley themselves had a goal chalked out by the ‘state of the art technology’ before Manchester United, quelle surprise, were awarded a 97 minute penalty enabling them to record their first win of the campaign.

We’ve all watched top flight football long enough to realise that however much some might deny, there is still a football hierarchy, and unfortunately at the weekend both Fulham and Burnley were the clubs for this week who were on the wrong side of it.

None of us could say in the same set of circumstances, but ultimately reversed, would Chelsea have had that goal ruled out or would Burnley have been awarded a last minute penalty?

But most football fans have got a pretty good idea.

Without Referees at any level, we wouldn’t have a game, and at no point am I alleging any kind of corruption, but because of their standing in the game there will always appear to be almost this unconscious bias towards the ‘bigger clubs’.

I’ve now lost count of the times the Albion have received retrospective VAR related apologies, but like Fulham and Burnley at the weekend it won’t bring the points back.

But unfortunately however much we all jump up and down VAR isn’t going anywhere, it’s here to stay whether fans or certain clubs like it.

Unless the EPL sit all their officials in a room and drum the level playing field aspect into them, it will never change, as previously mentioned more than one EPL manager, both past and present, has remarked it’s almost like some of them make the contentious decisions unconsciously.

And frankly something that drastic would almost be tantamount to an admission of guilt, life isn’t perfect and football’s no different, we all just have to get on with it.

But perhaps remembering the words of Ron Atkinson in that all we can do is hope that these things do level out over the course of the season, but that won’t be much comfort for the respective fans of Fulham or Burnley if either of them get relegated by a point in May!