Newcastle United probably deserved to lose against West Ham United but what they didn't deserve was that VAR call

Newcastle United were once again on the receiving end of an extremely poor VAR call in the 2-0 defeat to West Ham United at St James' Park.

Taking nothing away from West Ham who thoroughly deserved their victory after taking their chances against the Magpies and then defending resolutely to keep Newcastle at bay, but if VAR was fit for purpose, tonight's game would have ended very differently.

Already 2-0 down thanks to goals from Tomas Soucek and Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Newcastle reverted to route-one football to try and get a foothold back in the game.

A cross was played towards Callum Wilson who was brought down on the goal line by Konstantinos Mavrapanos with an arm right across Wilson's chest, stopping him from getting anywhere near the ball.

At what point does VAR overrule the referee?

Bizarrely, the referee didn't want to know, likely leaving it to be checked by VAR who get a much better look at things, but VAR decided to clear the incident despite replays showing a blatant foul by Mavrapanos.

Even Andy Hinchcliffe on co-commentary for Sky Sports, who had given Newcastle nothing all night, agreed that it was a penalty.

So the question, once again, is what is the actual point in VAR these days? if they aren't willing to overturn clear and obvious errors, do they actually serve a purpose any more?

It all looked pretty clear and obvious to us

Nothing could have been more clear and more obvious than Mavrapanos' foul on Wilson, therefore it was a clear and obvious error by the referee to not give it.

Newcastle would have had time to go and get an equaliser had that spot kick been awarded (and scored, which isn't a given this season with Alexander Isak's inability to score from penalties lately).

Had the score been level when this incident occurred we're sure we'd be hearing more about it, but as the game was pretty much gone for Newcastle at that point, it's a fairly moot point.

After the game, Jamie Carragher and Theo Walcott disagreed on the incident in the Sky Sports studio, but nothing Carragher said convinced me that it wasn't a blatant penalty.