Premier League referees will finally use pitchside monitors properly from next season to rule on offside calls as well as red cards.

On what read like an PR exercise by PGMOL on Saturday, it was being claimed that the clubs had insisted – four times – that the referees not use pitchside monitors and the decision had nothing to do with the refs.

Now, football lawmaker and former referee David Elleray, has admitted he would be ‘astonished’ if things didn’t change next season.

Speaking at the annual IFAB meeting, which was held in Belfast this year, Elleray said, “We did a survey of 6,000 matches from the top competitions and the average was 75 per cent of reviews are pitchside monitors.

“Any competition significantly outside that is clearly out of step.

“The English situation is that if something goes wrong during the season you have to decide whether you can make a major adjustment without compromising the integrity of that,” added Elleray.

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“You should expect there will be some changes next year. The vast majority of competitions believe that the vast majority of subjective decisions should have an onfield review.

“The English situation is different [to VAR use in the rest of football] and I would be astonished if it remained as it was next season.”