EVERYBODY knows that things have changed in life in general.

But when it comes to football, obviously we’ve mentioned so many times, no crowds, no atmosphere and away teams winning more games because of this.

But I still found it hard to believe that Liverpool, of all teams, had lost six home games in a row. I don’t think Bill Shankly would have been too happy if he’d been around!

Anfield, as I’ve said many a time, was one of the grounds where the crowd deserved a bonus at the end of the season because of the way they lifted their team. It looks like they were certainly sorely missed in the last month or two.

Talking of long runs of course, we can’t hide away from the fact that Saints have only got four points of the last 36.

I think a bit of the concentration has been taken off that because we are still in the FA Cup and today is the big day. It would have been bigger normally, with a full house at Bournemouth’s Vitality Stadium, which in the old days was known as Dean Court.

Derby matches are always special, this one more so because the winners will get to the semi-finals, which are being played at Wembley. Whether there’s a crowd at Wembley or not, and there should be some, surely, with a capacity of near 100,000 – 10,000 or 20,000 could be spread around the ground. But I suppose the problem is them all walking in or out of the ground together.

Having said that, how many times have we seen on television crowds of people in London at demonstrations?

Wembley is always a dream for particularly players in lower divisions. So that’s why we shouldn’t take for granted our Premier League team would find it easy at Bournemouth. Bearing in mind we happened to be in their division a few years ago, reached the final and came out winners.

The fact that players are looking forward to this possibly took their mind off some league games, who knows? But I’m sure Ralph will be telling them come Monday, whether they’ve won or lost, ‘get your 100 per cent concentration on getting a few more points’.

Because whilst there’s half a dozen teams beneath us at present, anything can happen. Although I think the bottom two, West Brom, who of course we have to play soon, and Sheffield United, look as though they’ve got too much to achieve.

I was sad to see Wilder leave

Talking of Sheffield, I have always had a bit of affection for the city, having worked there many years ago under the great manager Alan Brown at Hillsborough. But look where both clubs are at present – United struggling in the Premier League and Wednesday second-bottom of the Championship.

I was disappointed to see Sheffield United dismiss Chris Wilder. As we said only a few weeks ago, he and his number two, Alan Knill, were youth players with us in The Dell days. Both had a great attitude and I watched their careers afterwards. They stuck together at various clubs and worked their way back to manage Chris Wilder’s team who he supported from being a schoolboy, having been born in the city.

Bearing in mind that he had got them promoted up two divisions in two seasons, to be thrown out the door now I think was very sad.

But back to Saints, I think the lack of crowd will help the away team and the fact that the Echo reported after Bournemouth’s good win against Swansea earlier this week, they now have, unfortunately for them, seven first-team players unable to play today, mainly due to injuries. It makes it look more like Saints will be on their way to Wembley.

But the cup is so magical, you can’t take anything for granted, but fingers crossed.

VAR should stay out of offside calls

One of the sad things in the last week was the sight of the Wolves defender Conor Coady clashing with his goalkeeper Rui Patricio. This led to concussion, medical people on the pitch for about 10 minutes and saw the keeper stretchered off.

But the point I’m making is, if we had the old-fashioned system of the linesman putting his flag up, they would not have needed to even go for the ball as an offside would have been given.

But too late after VAR had worked it out. VAR for me will be okay if it’s judging whether a ball goes over the goal-line or not, or if it’s a penalty, but after that let’s get back to the old-fashioned way of the linesman keeping up with play and putting his flag up immediately. Then accidents like this would not have happened.