Dave Edwards: I support VAR - but Wolves were on the end of a howler

The foul on Raul Jimenez was a game-changing moment which, at 0-0, could have really swung it in Wolves’ favour enabling them to go on and win at Newcastle.

Straight away, it looked like a penalty, it was a really poor touch from Nick Pope back into his box, and once Raul Jimenez sees that and gets to the ball first, if there is any contact it is a penalty.

They say it has to be ‘contact with consequence’ that is the official line but I think it was enough, and it was a penalty.

Andy Madley was the man in charge of the game at Liverpool when those decisions also went against them.

But my biggest bugbear with it all is that it protects the referee too much. If there is no VAR available, I think he gives that penalty straight away. I almost think that because he has the technology as a back-up, he does not want to rush in and give the decision when he knows he can let it flow and VAR can put it right if there is a clear and obvious error.

That is my big issue with it, if he had given a penalty and it went to VAR it would not overturn the decision.

It would have been such an advantage for Wolves with Newcastle down to 10 men and Ruben Neves standing over a penalty. Providing he scored it, having an advantage at St James’ Park would have been massive.

I have seen it happen on so many occasions when a side feels like they have gotten away with one and it lifts the crowd. I played with VAR at Anfield once and we had a goal disallowed to go 1-0 up, and we went from this exhilaration of scoring in front of the fans to all of a sudden it giving Liverpool a massive lift and the game changed direction in a moment and I felt that is what happened at Newcastle.

Aside from that decision, they did not play as well as they have done, Newcastle were the better team through 90 minutes.

They took the lead with a brilliant header from Alexander Isak and Wolves had to regroup at the break.

They did get back in the game, and they seemed to be getting themselves on top, they got the goal and I have praised Julen Lopetegui several times for his substitutions and changes, but changing to a back five did not really work on this occasion.

Naturally, everyone dropped five or 10 yards deeper and it brought Newcastle back into the game again. The winner was really poor from Wolves’ point of view – the defending was poor, the tracking back from Rayan Ait-Nouri was poor and the defenders got pulled out of their shape.

There was a bit of fortune with the finish, but it was not good from a Wolves perspective.

They gave Newcastle that momentum back as they were the better team for most of the second half.

If Wolves had stayed the same Newcastle may have been a little bit more cagey about throwing lots of men forward because of what Wolves could offer on the counter-attack.

It all culminated in a poor 10 minutes and after the winner, they did not really recover.

It was not the worst performance in the world, but Newcastle were the better team and they probably deserved the three points, but the game could have gone a different way with the VAR decision in the first half.