Wolves boss Gary O'Neil calls to scrap 'clear and obvious' VAR ruling

His side have been on the end of two extremely controversial penalty decisions in the last two weeks, that have been widely criticised.

In both instances, the on-field referees gave the spot-kicks and after lengthy checks VAR did not overrule them, which has led O'Neil to believe that the 'clear and obvious' wording makes it difficult for the officials.

"The 'clear and obvious' thing makes it harder for VAR," O'Neil said.

"I think you would get more right if the guy who has the slow mos and replays says in their opinion its not a penalty. It shouldn’t need to be a clear and obvious error to get to the right conclusion. That's why we've ended up suffering the last two penalty decisions.

"Clear and obvious makes it harder for the officials.

"I understand the players feel aggrieved, we have had four decisions which have gone against us, which is a lot in 11 games. You can be unlucky in matches and spells, that’s all it is. We cant control that. Bad luck is part of the game.

"We can’t affect it so lets not waste any energy on it. We have discussed our reaction to it."

After the latest howler against Sheffield United, O'Neil had a phone call with PGMOL chief Howard Webb to discuss the number of poor decisions given against Wolves.

He added: "I had a good conversation with Howard, off the back of last weekend. A private conversation which I don’t want to go into too much but an honest chat about where we think we are. An understanding on my part that Howard is responsible for trying to shift the standard and he's working extremely hard to do that.

"A good chat around trying to improve the standards. It’s been a tricky spell for refereeing decisions and VAR. There's no real secrets to reveal, just a good chat around VAR and how to improve things.

"I’ve given some of my ideas to Howard, whether he wanted them or takes them or not. I’m keen not to speak about it too much more. It’s easy to sit and talk about VAR for half an hour. My focus is on us and maybe when im asked questions about VAR it leads people to believe I’m focused on VAR.

"The review came back that it was 5-0 in favour of a penalty not being given on field and 5-0 that VAR should have overturned. They have recognised last week’s decision was incorrect. Hopefully they can recognise the first one before the Tuesday review

"We are where we are, we’ve had a few go against us but we need to be better and my focus is on making us better."