Furious Jeff Stelling blasts "disgraceful nonsense" after further VAR confusion

Sky Sports' Soccer Saturday presenter Jeff Stelling was left incandescent with rage following the latest VAR controversy in West Brom's game against Brighton.

After falling behind to a Kyle Bartley header the Seagulls thought they had equalised when Lewis Dunk fired home a quick free-kick after referee Lee Mason appeared to have blown his whistle.

However, just before the ball hit the net Mason seemed to change his mind, and blew again.

He initially disallowed the goal, but then changed his mind once again to signal it should stand.

But the controversy did not end there, as Simon Hooper on VAR looked over the bizarre incident and decided that the goal should in fact be disallowed due to Mason's second whistle.

It was an extraordinary sequence of events, and Stelling and his co-pundits such as Paul Merson could not believe what they were seeing.

As Mason discussed the issue with Brighton's players, Stelling raged: "He's talking to them like a schoolmaster, for goodness sake.

"This is a shambles Lee Mason. What have you done?"

As it became apparent the goal had been ruled out Stelling got even angrier, yelling: "They've given no goal! VAR has given no goal!

"And now he's going to go and look at the screen. This is a total, utter, shameful, disgraceful piece of nonsense!

After further discussion from the pundits, Stelling added witheringly: "This is the dream team of Lee Mason and Simon Hooper, who is on VAR at the moment. You could not make this up.

"Seriously, if he knows he hasn't blown, how can he then award the goal after someone's then told him that he did whistle? Doesn't he know whether he whistled or not?

"I have never seen anything, ANYTHING, anywhere, like this. It's a total, utter shambles."

This is not the first time Mason has been in the headlines recently, with Wolves manager Nuno Espirito Santo labelling him "not good enough" in November.

He was then criticised for his role in West Ham midfielder Tomas Soucek's recent sending off against Fulham as he operated the VAR – a decision which was alter overturned following an appeal.

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