FRUSTRATED Steve Cook insists VAR has “made the game worse” after Cherries saw two goals controversially ruled out at Burnley, adding: “Right now it seems like the world is against us.”

Joshua King looked to have put the visitors ahead at Turf Moor in the first half, only for the effort to be ruled out for handball with Philip Billing judged to have used his arm in the build-up. After consultation with video ref Chris Kavanagh, on-field referee Mike Dean disallowed the goal.

And things went from bad to worse for Cherries in the second half. Already trailing 1-0, Harry Wilson thought he had levelled the contest, but play was instead brought back for a penalty to Burnley after review with Adam Smith deemed to have controlled the ball with his arm at the other end before Cherries launched their attack to score.

Jay Rodriguez buried the resulting spot-kick before Dwight McNeil wrapped up a 3-0 win late on.

“Obviously VAR has come into the game to clear up everything and it’s made the game worse,” Cook told the Daily Echo.

“I feel sorry for the fans, especially our fans who have travelled a long way and spent a lot of money and I thought we played really well and we deserved to give them something on Saturday and VAR once again has caused controversy and I think they are two terrible mistakes.

“It just feels that the people in the room in VAR, I don’t know how they can give our goal handball.

“It’s clearly hit Phil on the shoulder. It’s embarrassing to be honest. You can tell these people have obviously never played the game.”

He added: “We’ve seen it (back). It’s never handball. It’s hit him. What can you do? It’s bounced off him and we’ve scored.

“And then the second goal, I think if we don’t score, they don’t give that as a penalty.

“I don’t think it’s the officials who were actually reffing the game. It’s the people who are sitting a million miles away from the game that have cost us on Saturday.”

Asked if he feels Dean should have consulted the pitchside monitor at Turf Moor to make the decision himself, Cook added: “I don’t really know my views on that.

“I spoke with Mike (Dean) during the game and he says he can only go off what they tell him so if that’s the case then maybe he should go and have a look himself, otherwise what is the point in the monitor? There is no point in the monitor.”

The defeat left Cherries narrowly outside the relegation zone with games against Chelsea and Liverpool to come next.

“Right now it seems like the world is against us but it will galvanise us,” said Cook.

“We’ve got 11 cup finals, it’s huge.

“We need to keep fighting ourselves, keep trusting what we’re going to do and we’ll come out on top because we don’t want to lose to VAR to be honest.”