lam laughing, i am laughing, ben crutcher is joining us. i am laughing, and i am laughing, ben crutcher is joining us. lam laughing, and i probably should not be, because we should be impartial at the bbc, but i would imagine not everyone is happy with var. you are right. what did we talk about before var? if we were allowed in pubs, it would be a hot topic for sure. every weekend, we seem to have some talking points. how many times do we see a situation like this? players standing around. a message on the big screen. when fans were allowed inside, they were clueless. it's improved a bit this season, but is everything perfect? well, comres has polled 2,100 football fans and found some interesting, if not unsurprising, views on var. this is the kind of thing we're talking about. marginal offside decisions. slow—mos.

little ta ps little taps inside the penalty area. the dreaded lines you see on the screen — at home, anyway. if you're a fan inside the stadium, you don't really know what's going on. is it slumming the game down or is it important to get the decisions right? ash make slowing the games down? data suggests there are fewer mistakes than before, but not all of you are happy. fans were asked if var was making football better or worse. 44% think it made football worse and less than a third felt the video assistant was improving the spectacle. interestingly, young people were more receptive to var than old. here's some of your tweets. dan says... nick adds that it is... and that is a

view that is echoed by sonja, who says... we got the views of a couple of former england internationals. it isa it is a voice of protest, it is a voice of distrust towards referees, and that's still the opinion. it is not var in itself, is the people who operating it. and they are humans. and as much as we dislike it, they are normal people try to make the best decisions they can. the referee in the pamir league are very good referees, —— the —— premier league. it is subjective suffering all of the decisions given... they have been strange. they will have to tidy it up if it is going to improve the game. i do understand why the supporters are getting frustrated. football of the bow enjoyment, it is about scoring

goals, it is about entertaining the crowd. var has taken a bit of that at the moment —— football is about enjoyment. andy cole touched upon it there — enjoyment. has all of this affected your enjoyment of it? nearly half of fans in the poll said var made them enjoy football less. just 26% said football was more enjoyable with var. and one of the big debates is how consistently var is applied. think nicolas pepe being sent off for a headbutt against leeds a couple of weeks ago, yet fred received just a yellow in the champions league for manchester united on wednesday for pretty much the same thing. just over a quarter think var is applied consistently. 50% think it's inconsistent. much more detail on the bbc sport website, lizzie, but one of my favourite stats from the poll — 45% thinks var 45% thinks var still gets decisions wrong. even with all of this technology,

all of these caliphate referees, some things are never happy! —— qualified referees. ben, do not start with me... thank you very much. let's move on to formula i. despite never having scored a point in his 36 races spanning two years in formula i, george russell topped the time sheets in first practice for the sakhir grand prix. it was, of course, probably helped by the fact that the 22—year—old briton was driving lewis hamilton's car. the newly—crowned world champion is missing due to coronavirus. but russell was still almost a third of a second quicker than his mercedes team—mate valtteri bottas, who was only fourth quickest in bahrain. second practice is currently under way. and it looks like russell is still quickest at the moment, see you can listen to that on five live extra. we have got practice for you now.

while lewis hamilton has dominated formula i, britain hasn't done so well on the rallying stage. it's 19 years since the country could boast a world champion. title favourite elfyn evans is still on course to change that. after the second day of the final rally of the season, he's fourth overall. nick parrott reports. in formula i, monza is known as the temple of speed, bonnet comes to rallying, the temple of doom seems more appropriate. the belgian writer came third in the championship, but his chances were completely drowned out. six—time champion sebastian is the only person who can stop elfyn evans winning the title. the frenchman threw caution to the wind, suffered a setback and at times could not see a way forward, but he managed to stay ahead of toyota team—mate evans, who adopted a more cautious approach. the briton says

he was too slow in places but he does not need to win to become world champion. he avoided mistakes and lies fourth overall, just five seconds before his rifle, but with snow forecast from mountain stages, things will not get any easier. —— for saturday's mountain stages. nick parrott, bbc news. big news from the uk snooker championship. neil robertson has knocked out mark selby to reach the last four. the world number three australian has been in fine form all week at milton keynes, beating selby 6—2. here's a round—up of the day's action so far with seema jaswal. we have reached the quarterfinal stage here at the uk championship, and we saw a really intriguing match today between neil robertson and mark selby, but just today between neil robertson and mark selby, butjust to go to. he was an imperious form today, along success was an imperious form today, along success of 90%, his stats. almost impossible to play against, but there was a chance in the match, when mark selby could have got on

level terms, a sort of unforced ever in position, but neil robertson was just awesome today. big breaks, high—scoring frames, just what we associate with mark robinson —— neil robertson now. even some of the frames he did lose, but his long game was phenomenal, his safety was great, but his scoring all the winter was fantastic. it was nearly a perfect match of sneaker he played a. he looks like he really enjoyed himself today. over on table two, we saw jack lisowski against shallow —— djalo you long. -- djalo you long. he did not really threaten his opponent, which much more solid, had looked like he had the better temperament and it better all—around game, so another frustrating defeat forjack lisowski. but a big win for zhou yuelong. yeah, for some into the

semifinal, and he's a very good tidy, all—around player. he has won again today in a slightly different matter. neil robertson has got to pick himself up and repeat that performance. it does not always happen, so zhou yuelong has a chance. interesting game between neil robertson and zhou yuelong, and you can tune in tonight to seejudd trump against kyren wilson on bbc two. thank you for that, seema jaswal. now, let's round up some of today's other sports stories. eddiejones has madejust one change to his england side to face france in sunday's autumn nations cup final at twickenham. wing anthony watson replaces jonathanjoseph, who was injured in last weekend's victory over wales. but it'll be a strange game with a very inexperienced france side, due to a union agreement over the number of internationals players can take part in. andy sullivan leads a trio of englishmen at the top of the dubai championship leaderboard. he is 2! under par —

two shots clear of matt wallace — with ross fisher one behind him going into the final round. jamie donaldson is tied for the lead at the south africa open. and lebronjames has signed a new two—year contract with nba champions los angeles lakers, worth a reported £63 million. james helped the lakers to their first nba title in a decade in october and his new deal will expire in 2023, 20 years on from his nba debut. and finally, you'd think freestyle skiers do most of their training either on the slopes or maybe a trampoline, but switzerland's andri ragletti — who's aiming for a medal at the next winter olympics — has taken it to a whole new level. in fact, his parkour "floor is lava" video is so good, it went viral, even drawing praise from tennis great roger federer. roger federerjust checked my video!

hey, iam roger federerjust checked my video! hey, i am andri ragletti, roger federerjust checked my video! hey, iam andri ragletti, i roger federerjust checked my video! hey, i am andri ragletti, i am 22 yea rs hey, i am andri ragletti, i am 22 years old, i am a professional free skewer from switzerland. —— years old, i am a professional free skewerfrom switzerland. —— free skier. the one i did last year took me 232 tries, six hours nonstop. trying, trying, trying. i just tries, six hours nonstop. trying, trying, trying. ijust can't give up. it's hard work, but when you make it, the feeling is amazing. yes! it helps for sure. in the end, i still need to be a skier and do my tricks on snow, like the control and know what to do with your body, in the sport. some skiers did not like

the sport. some skiers did not like the style. and they hated on me. it hurt a little bit for my feelings, but they just hate hurt a little bit for my feelings, but theyjust hate because they don't have it. i think people like what i do, and if i have haters, i don't listen to them, yeah, and it's more a motivation for me and fuel to go even crazier and work harder. i went on instagram and, yeah, roger federerjust went on instagram and, yeah, roger federer just reposted my went on instagram and, yeah, roger federerjust reposted my video, and he wrote, boss. yeah, it was amazing. the human picked gold is for sure one of my big goals, the gold medal would be for sure the best. i will work hard and hopefully make it to reality. wow! best of luck to him in the olympics.

would not be doing it myself personally! that is it from us. have a good night. hello there. low pressure sticking around overnight is going to bring further bands of rain, showers, also some sleet and snow, mainly over the higher ground. and the strong winds which we've had across northern and western areas will gradually become more confined towards the west and the southwest, slowly easing down through the course of the night. now, it looks like much of the southeast will stay dry, clearing quite cold here, but further north and west, lots of showers, longer spells of rain, some snow for the pennines and over the higher ground of scotland. those temperatures then ranging from around —i or —2 celsius in the east to around 4 or 5, so we could see a touch of frost across some eastern areas to greet us for saturday morning. the weekend is staying cold for all,

but it will gradually turn drier as this area of low pressure slips away southwards and takes the showers and the hill snow with it, so we'll have much lighter winds on sunday with a little bit of mist and fog, perhaps some sunshine too. and it stays chilly and mainly settled as we head on into the start of next week too.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. brexit trade talks are at a very difficult point warns downing street — as negotiations continue tonight, with just four weeks to go until the uk's transition period ends. really, it's now getting under 30 days, and we're no clearer of what's going to happen. police say a 16—year—old boy was one of the four people killed in the explosion at a water treatment plant near bristol yesterday. i'm going to be assessing you for the delivery of the vaccine now... the teams getting ready to roll out the pfizer vaccine.