Alan Shearer fears he might have been sacked from BBC on Saturday as refereeing decisions against Newcastle United built up
It's Monday morning, and we're still talking about that performance by the officials at Villa Park on Saturday that saw Newcastle United fans left scratching their heads.
The number of decisions that went against Newcastle and the sheer unbelievability that they could get them so wrong has dominated the footballing conversation over the weekend.
With no VAR in the fourth round of the FA Cup, Chris Kavanagh and his blind assistants have been held up as the poster boys for VAR on both sides of the argument. Some say that it shows how much VAR is needed, while others believe VAR has made the standards of officiating so bad that the officials can't do their jobs right without it. We fall into that latter camp after that performance.
Alan Shearer was working in the BBC Studio on Saturday and got to give his thoughts after a little bit of time to calm down and think, but the former Toon striker is glad his role wasn't different.
Alan Shearer was glad he had time to think on Saturday
Shearer admitted to The Rest Is Football podcast that had he been on co-commentary for that game, he'd probably have been sacked by the BBC.
"You've got time to think when you're in the studio, because more often or not, by the time they've come to you, you've got a fewer minutes to work out what you're going to say, how you're going to say it and you've got time to look at your analysis - unless it happens in the last seconds.
"If I were on the co-comms on the Aston Villa vs Newcastle one, I might have been sacked! Because with what I wanted to say RE the referee and the assistant, honestly!"
Why hasn't Chris Kavanagh been booted to non-league football yet?
We imagine that little box, which housed the BBC studio, was a fun place to be, watching Shearer's reactions to those decisions in real time.
There has still been no announcement on Chris Kavanagh amid calls for the referee to be suspended for his display on Saturday, which came quickly off the back of having to issue an apology to Sunderland for an error in their game against Liverpool.
A lot of people connected to the game, such as Eddie Howe and Alan Shearer, have to caveat their rants with 'it's a hard job' and 'mistakes happen' so they don't get in trouble ... we don't. Chris Kavanagh shouldn't be allowed near the professional game again just for that handball penalty decision alone.
