It's not football anymore: West Ham robbed by VAR

Sheffield United 1 West Ham 0 (but should have been 1)

In our never-ending search for a lucky pub, it's off to the Auld Triangle with Her Indoors who is now Irish, Lisa and my neighbour Nick. Matt's away trying to persuade Harry and Meghan not to tear up their royal season tickets.

Proof the Gods are against us arrives early as Fabianski collapses on the turf after taking a goal kick. That's three injuries West Ham have had this season resulting from taking goal kicks. David Martin comes on and although Sheffield have a couple of half-chances West Ham's five-man defence looks much more solid than under Pellegrini. Felipe Anderson has the best chance of the half only to slot wide after outpacing the Blades' defence.

The start of the second half is all Sheffield and they take the lead with a calamitous goal. Martin plays a short goal kick to Balbuena who isn't ready, Fleck wins the ball and McBurnie taps home. It's a big ricket but signed as third-choice keeper Martin's done brilliantly for us so far and provided the best moment of the season at Stamford Bridge, so it's hard to be too critical.

West Ham then show real character to come back into the game. Martin makes a decent stop from Mousset to partially redeem himself and the Hammers have chances on the break. Balbuena heads into the ground and over the bar while Haller has a goal correctly disallowed for offside. Lanzini has a free kick saved and misses a good chance by shooting  at the keeper when he could have squared it for Haller. Snodgrass causes a lot of problems with his free-kicks. 

Just as Lisa asks why it's only other teams who equalise in added time Rice makes a barnstorming run through the centre and finds Snoddy, who fires in off the post. The pub erupts with joy (or at least the four of us watching the game) and Snodgrass does his best choreographed celebration in front of the away fans. 

But then comes sodding VAR. A United defender has headed the ball onto Rice's hand in the build-up and though it's unintentional the new rule says all handballs have to be penalised. How to take the joy out of the game. David Moyes gives his Glasgow death stare on the touchline. It's not the despair I can't take... The law needs to be changed as goals are being disallowed for unintentional offences not visible to the naked eye.

So we now have an unlucky VAR pub. Without Fabianski's injury and VAR we might even have won this against the fifth-placed Blades. The result wasn't there but an encouraging away performance. Now all we need is a goalkeeper...