Are Newcastle United the only rich club hated by officials?

Formal disclaimer: I don’t expect or want us to be given every decision by referees, linos and VARs.

All I want is fair officiating. But that’s just not happening is it?

We’ve played six league games now and only one went by without at least one shocker from the officials.

From the outside, it’s easy to see us as martyrs when that one game happens to be the only one we’ve won so far. We’re just blaming referees for the fact we’re not pulling out the wins. There’s a renewed hatred towards us as supporters now that our club is rich and we risk being tarred with the same brush as supporters of Liverpool and Manchester United. But most of these decisions have been clear as day.

Let’s start with Brighton. A really poor performance away from home, if we’re being honest. In terms of performance, I think a draw was a fair result. But what wasn’t fair was the decision to disallow Callum Wilson’s goal.

High feet can be dangerous. But the Brighton players were nowhere near enough to Wilson for this to be the case. And how many times have we seen far more dangerous challenges not given? And it didn’t even go to VAR – which is exactly what the technology is there for.

Next up, Manchester City. There was no one standout incident in this game, but rather an overwhelmingly biased refereeing performance that saw every decision – minor or major – go their way. It’s hard to keep momentum up in a game when the referee is blowing his whistle every time you’re within a foot of an opposition player. Giving the opposition a flood of free kicks only increases their chances of getting back into the game.

Wolves away wasn’t our most sparkling performance either. We sorely missed Bruno as playmaker and Wilson as the target man, and we looked shapeless and devoid of creativity beyond the odd ASM moment of magic. I felt we were lucky to equalise based on performances, but where was the penalty for the blatant shirt-pull on Longstaff? And, once again, where was VAR? These goals could be the catalysts that changed the way we played and how the games turned out.

Now onto the two most infuriating games I’ve experienced in a long time. We put in an excellent shift against Liverpool and should have been 2-0 up, but Isak’s second was determined as offside. What was offside, you ask?

His shadow.

We took it in our stride but understandably, it knocked us and they equalised. There were five minutes of added time, which nobody batted an eyelid at. But anyone who says that we wasted three full additional minutes within that time needs to give their head a wobble.

Did we time-waste a bit? Of course. Should referees claw that back? Yes. But we spent four of those five minutes attacking Liverpool. They started attacking around the five-minute mark and, what do you know, more time was allowed until the ball was in the back of the net.

Even typing this, my chest is tight with anger.

Now for the one that the entire footballing world has agreed on – a rarity. Joe Willock gets pushed into the Palace goalkeeper and in an instant, scores and gets knocked out cold. No goal. The VAR made a deliberate decision to only show the referee one dubious angle instead of the multitude that gave us the reality.

As Eddie Howe himself said, what was Willock supposed to do? And where do we go from here?

VAR has had its critics since day one. A lot of people don’t like the stoppages, the uncertainty. Many of us are willing to see them through if it makes the game fairer. But it isn’t. And why? Because the people whose mistakes it was brought in to correct are the people making the VAR decisions.

As a technology, it’s a necessity, because the standard of officiating in the Premier League – and arguably the whole country – is abysmal. You could forgive referees for not making decisions when their views were restricted but beyond that, they either played for the big boys or they just got it wrong because they weren’t competent. Those same referees are sitting behind the screen with the power to change those things.

Instead, they’re ignoring incidents that clearly need a review because the referee didn’t see or care. They’re giving offsides based on the position of a player’s shadow. Toenails, fingers, nose hairs – they’re all candidates for offside. You get knocked out cold when you score a goal? Too bad, you’re in the wrong. They’ve completely forgone the ethos of “clear and obvious”.

Of course, I’m coming at it from an NUFC perspective, but it’s not just us. West Ham are just as aggrieved this week and rightly so. Goalkeepers are apparently untouchable now. It’s a far cry from Willy Boly getting away with yarking down Dubravka, but it’s gone too far the other way.

VAR is being reviewed, as it should be, but I won’t hold my breath for the right change to happen.

Because the change needs to be the people behind the screen. They need to be independent of the people running the show on the pitch.

Mike Riley hasn’t done a good job, but does anyone really expect Manchester United’s ex-lover Howard Webb to do much better?

The only thing I can hope for is that these decisions even themselves out across the season. Our uphill battle to competing with the big boys looks all the more steep right now.