Former referee Jeff Winter has argued that Cameron Archer’s goal against Albion should have stood.

The Southampton star saw his potential match-winning goal ruled out by a controversial VAR decision due to Adam Amstrong being offside in the build-up.

Saints boss Russell Martin bemoaned the decision at full-time, and Winter has suggested he sympathises with the under-pressure manager.

The former official goes as far as to say that he disagreed with the statement from PGMOL that claimed that Armstrong was impacting the game.

Speaking with Grosvenor Casino, he said: “I will have an opinion that may not be right exactly when I refereed and may not be universally accepted, but one thing that I think should be universally accepted is that the ball hits the back of the net and nearly five minutes later they've come to a decision that people are still confused by, and that's where I think VAR is not helping.

“I think everybody will have had the laws and the interpretation rammed down their throat this week and I've seen the statement from the PGMOL that the player, when the cross comes in, impacts on the game.

“Well, my opinion is that he doesn't impact on the game. It's not like he goes to have a shot and clearly misses it. To me it goes across in front of him.

“Going back many, many years, I think it was Brian Clough who said, ‘If you're on the pitch, you're interfering’, well you would get and would have got down the year’s goals being disallowed like they are now, some perfectly good goals, and for me, this one falls into that category.

“The whole incident was very confusing, but I didn't think it impacted the game.

“I didn’t watch the game live, but I'd heard about it, and I thought ‘Oh, it's going to be one of these where someone's had a shot and there's a player stood in front of the goalkeeper, is he pairing his vision of the trajectory of the ball?’, but it was nothing like that.

“The ball flashed across the goalkeeper, the goalkeeper would have been prepared had the attacker managed to get it and have a shot on goal. But in the normal course of the game, the ball goes to the right-hand side.

“The goalkeeper would be switched on to try and save that. So after a heck of a lot of confusion, for me, that should have stood and I understand the Southampton manager’s anger at it.”

Winter also took issue with the length of time it took officials to make the decision to rule out the goal.

The VAR review took four minutes and 27 seconds, and Winter insisted that the length of time was a “farce”.

He added: “You've got to be there when you’re in a stadium, and everybody's just stood around scratching their heads. The fans can't celebrate.

“The players can't celebrate, the referee out in the middle is stuck there not having a clue what's going on.

“If it's a decision that takes 30 seconds or 45 seconds and they'll get it right – that's acceptable, but whether they get it right or wrong, pushing five minutes is just an absolute farce.”