[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

the free kick was bewildering I can only assume he accidentally blew his whistle but as mentioned blew again to halt proceedings
before the ball went in. That said when it did go in at least one if not two of their players were in offside positions. No idea why Mason
decided to change his mind an award the goal for it to then be overturned again by VAR however as mentioned by others about time we had some luck

The MOTD gang explained it pretty convincingly last night. Brighton had asked permission to take the free-kick quickly, which the ref had verbally given (as their players confirmed in post-match interviews). He then blew the whistle to allow the kick, but panicked and changed his mind when he spotted Johnstone standing by the post arranging the wall. He awarded the goal because he thought at first that he'd been too late with the second whistle, but VAR subsequently confirmed that the ball hadn't crossed the line at that point, so it was disallowed.

Brighton apparently did the same thing a couple of years back against Liverpool and got away with it, so in the name of consistency they might feel hard done by. But in contrast to what Lineker and his pals were saying, I think it opens a massive can of worms to allow quick free-kicks in any situation where a goal could be scored from one single strike. After all, if you allow that, why not "quick penalties" too? Why give the goalie chance to prepare himself? Both teams deserve the chance to ready themselves for a major set-piece, because what you've got otherwise is chaos and inconsistency; and as VAR has already demonstrated, heaping more arbitrary power into the hands of match officials goes a long way towards wrecking the game.