So this is where we are with VAR now.
As a ball looped over the top for Teemu Pukki, the Norwich City striker was, to the naked eye, onside. Tottenham Hotspur’s defence were trailing in his wake, struggling to keep up with him as he galloped into the box and scored brilliantly.
The goal gave the Canaries a 2-0 lead over Spurs that would have seemed unassailable given the performances of the two teams in the first half at Carrow Road. Where Norwich were full of energy and hunger to cause an upset, Spurs looked lethargic despite a number of changes and a completely new midfield pairing of Tanguy Ndombele and Giovani Lo Celso.
But then VAR intervened.
Pukki, the faceless technology decreed, was offside. It seemed unthinkable, really, as whenever you used your actual eyes to look at the replay he was a few inches behind Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld. But, no, the goal was chalked off.
No clues whatsoever: Which seasons do these iconic Spurs images belong to?
A chant of “it’s not football anymore” and one featuring fruitier language began.
Spurs came back, scoring through Christian Eriksen’s free-kick before Serge Aurier scored an absolutely comical own goal and Harry Kane again brought Spurs level.
Both sides were forced to settle for a point.
Before the game, Norwich would probably have taken 2-2, if they hadn’t been told the circumstances of the result. Spurs, who could have climbed into the top four, almost certainly wouldn’t.
And yet it feels as though it is the latter who have escaped further punishment here.
Had they fallen 2-0 behind, who knows how Jose Mourinho’s side would have reacted. Throughout the game they made individual mistakes – Juan Foyth lost the ball in the build-up to Norwich’s first goal, then Aurier’s own goal, and a number of sloppy turnovers in midfield – and were never really all that threatening to the opposition goal. Eriksen’s strike was a free-kick, Kane’s was a penalty.
VAR, then, deserves a great deal of credit for Spurs claiming a point.
It has intervened famously for them before, sending them through to the Champions League semi-final at Manchester City’s expense last season and again coming to their rescue at the Etihad in the Premier League this term.
This, though, was the most egregious example, and an outrageous one at that. Pukki, for all intents and purposes, was onside.
But that decision, one has to feel, has proved more integral to them taking a point than any individual performance.
Norwich can rightly feel hard done by; Spurs’ blushes have truly been spared.
Meanwhile, Jose Mourinho must bring the best out of one man.
