When you work that hard through 90 minutes it's really tough to take a decision like the one that Tottenham had to accept after their match at Manchester United on Tuesday.

I thought the Spurs manager Martin Jol spoke very well after the game and got his point of view across without losing it.

When you have gone to Manchester United - or any game where you have worked hard - the goalkeeper makes a mistake, the ball is over the line and you get nothing... it's a travesty.

He went with a game plan and they stuck to it and it worked. And then in the last three minutes you get a chance to take all three points away and you have it snatched from you.

There were only four people in the stadium that didn't see it cross the line and unfortunately they were the officials.

For critical situations such as offsides and that goal that wasn't, I think you need some sort of camera to sort it out.

Those three points could drop you down, keep you out of Europe, keep you in the league or ultimately get you relegated. It's a massive three points.

The biggest example I can think of is the 1966 World Cup. The Russian linesman did ever so well to spot that.

You have to wonder whether the linesman on Tuesday was rushing back to try and get a look so that by the time he got to the edge of the box he was too busy running and not watching the ball.

Or maybe he saw the goalkeeper go to catch it and didn't expect a mistake so he turned away.

It's a very difficult situation. He's trying to do his job but he can't be everywhere and see everything at once.

There is the argument that not having the cameras puts the emphasis on the human decisions and that makes it more interesting because sometimes the decision-making goes for you and other times against you. It certainly creates talking-points - I'm sure every pub was full of it after the game.

Hopefully, you would see those decisions even out over the course of the season.

It would be difficult to implement cameras all the way down to grassroots, but at that level it's not always about winning.

It's always good to win, of course, but there's no Europe at the end of it. When you've got kids playing it's all about getting the experience on the ball. The winning is not - or shouldn't be - the key thing.

My attitude has always been to just play on and let them get on with it but that situation the other night has really changed my mind and I now think that at the top level - and even down to our level - there should be some kind of video system in place.

There's so much at stake in terms of money that I think you need that.

One way of doing it would be to introduce some kind of touch judge. Maybe you could have one linesman going from the 18-yard line to the goal-line and another from the edge of the box to the half-way line.

Having cameras wouldn't be too much of an interruption. They have cricket decisions and it takes about 30 seconds. With all the new non-contact rules coming in it has stopped some of the natural flow anyway with the whistle always blowing.

But maybe if it was just for the major decisions which could cost the club a promotion or a relegation or an FA Cup win it would work.

That case on Tuesday was so blatant that it does need to be considered.

At the end of the day, it was down to human error - all the 'keeper had to do was catch it - but he didn't and he got away with it.

Updated: 08:42 Thursday, January 06, 2005