Matt Maher: The officials had a nightmare at Aston Villa - but this was no vindication of VAR

Their error-strewn performance in Villa’s FA Cup defeat to Newcastle, screened live to millions on the BBC, was the kind which will be talked about for the years, with the mistake on which they combined - awarding a free-kick despite Lucas Digne handling the ball at least a yard or two inside the box - forever consigned to the catalogue of Worst You’ve Ever Seen.

No referee, or assistant, makes mistakes on purpose but these were huge blunders, Greenhalgh having also gaffed in the first half when he failed to spot Tammy Abraham straying a yard offside before firing Villa in front.

In the hours after the match it came as no surprise to hear many commentators bemoan the absence of VAR from this round of the Cup. Wasn’t this, after all, exhibit A as to why video technology is needed to assist referees?

Which is fine, in theory, in the same way the use of VAR makes perfect sense, in theory.

In practice, as the past eight years in the Premier League have shown, things are very different.

Of course, VAR works perfectly when the decisions are so obvious as they were on Saturday night.

But rarely is that the case and the trouble is no-one will ever be able to agree where to draw the line.

Not even a fortnight earlier, at the same venue, we saw the perfect example of how over-reaching the use of technology can be when Abraham had a goal ruled out against Brentford because the VAR decided the ball had gone fractions out of play at the other end of the pitch. 

Clear and obvious has always been fine, in principle. In practice, one person's idea of clear and obvious is different from another.

For example, it’s possible Greenhalgh erred again when he failed to flag Dan Burn offside in the build-up to Sandro Tonali’s equaliser. 

It was the kind of fractional call which in the Premier League would have prompted a minute’s long VAR review. On Saturday night, the match moved on. Few people were discussing that moment after the game.

Even Eddie Howe, the Newcastle manager driven to a rare state of apoplexy during the game’s first hour, stopped short of advocating for VAR in the aftermath.

"I'm always torn on it,” he said. “I said this many times because I still love the emotion, even tonight, when a goal is given and you don't see a flag or a referee, it's a goal, and no one's going to take it away from you.”

There will be many who empathise with that view, most of them match-going supporters. Horribly flawed as Saturday’s officiating might have been, the game itself was rip-roaring fun. If anything, the errors added to the spectacle, with no boring delays while someone 100 miles away studies a video screen.

Maybe there is something in the argument VAR has lessened the instincts of those officials working at the top level.

That in itself would hardly be a surprise. For one thing, it has changed the way they operate. Refereeing would hardly be the only profession where the increased use of technology may have diminished skills.

But there have been 48 ties scheduled in the third and fourth FA Cup rounds and at the time of writing only two - those at Villa Park and Etihad - have prompted calls for the greater use of VAR.

On Sunday, Paul Tierney, fourth official at Villa Park on Saturday and ironically the VAR who disallowed Abraham’s goal two weeks’ earlier, won plaudits for correctly spotting Blues winger Carlos Vicente had dived while trying to win a penalty in their defeat to Leeds.

Good calls, of course, will never receive the same publicity as mistakes. Both will always be part of the game, whether VAR is in use or not.