Leeds United’s Marcelo Bielsa explains why now is the time to back the referees

Stuart Attwell gave the goal and his video assistant referee Peter Bankes failed to see the clear and obvious error the vast majority of pundits, including former Premier League referees, did.

Another manager would have let rip, and Monday’s headlines would have been written there and then.

“I prefer to accept what the referees say, not because I don’t have an opinion, I think it’s a collaboration we coaches should make to accept the decisions of the referees even if they jeopardise us,” said Leeds’ head spoilsport – sorry, coach.

“If not, we enter terrain where we can’t offer what we want to offer, which is good football.

“I think the decision to accept their decisions helps their job and the spectacle.”

It is a noble and correct stance from Bielsa who when his post-match press conferences do verge towards the unfair, it is usually only in the criticism he reserves for himself. Others do their best to bite their lips, too.

There is a pressing need for more discussion about the VAR system and how it is used, and it would benefit greatly from an experienced and reasonable football-lover like Bielsa having his two-penn’orth, but in this case behind closed doors.

There is value too in the jokey Instagram story Mateusz Klich posted with its sarcastic wavy offside line to demonstrate how ludicrous Attwell and Bankes’s decision was. Klich may get punished, but this is only a game, not life and death, and we all need a laugh sometimes.

But the managers have a responsibility to publicly respect the decisions of the officials, hard though the latter make it for them at times. We can only applaud Bielsa’s restraint.

Good officials are so hard to find not just at English football’s highest levels but on parks up and down the country, and every personal attack, every concerted social media campaign, every threat and act of violence (more a parks issue) or death threat (depressingly, they do happen), makes it that much harder.

That is not the same as pretending everything is hunky-dory and that inept decisions are correct.

It is not only behind the scenes Attwell and Bankes should be asked what they were thinking. If they have seen something which those of us less expert in the rules and modern interpretations of the game have not, telling us can help to educate us, and might even make us change our minds. Might.

Hearing the discussions between the VAR and the referee in real-time as we do in other sports – in the stadium as well as on television – and explanations of other decisions at full-time would be beneficial too.

We want them to speak to help themselves and us. If it means once in a while saying: “I’m sorry, I got it wrong,” rather than their bosses jumping through hoops to try to find some excuse for a blatantly wrong decision, so much the better. The silence creates a no-doubt inaccurate impression – in most if not all cases – that these are arrogant men (and once in a while women) who do not need to justify their actions to the likes of us.

To have VAR at some FA Cup ties and not others – based not on whether the grounds are set up for it but licencing reasons which mean it is only available at grounds that currently host Premier League football – is wrong. Those of us who enjoy the game more when it is run by (hopefully) skilled humans, not people pressing the pause and rewind button to see if they can find a knee in an offside position or frantically looking for an excuse to spare their mate’s blushes (although if you think they are all so pally-pally, perhaps read Mark Clattenburg’s autobiography) would gladly do away with it altogether.

But if it is to stay – and it almost certainly is – better to make it as good as possible.

Ultimately, though, VAR does not stop mistakes. Referees in Stockley Park studios make them just like on-pitch referees, managers, players, pundits, journalists and fans when they go back to work.

When they do we should be frustrated and we can certainly be angry but we have to be grown-up about it, too, and managers with microphones in their mushes have to show the self-discipline they should expect from their players.

It may come as a shock to one or two Leeds worshippers but Bielsa is not perfect either. The view he put forward on Sunday was, though.