A LAST-MINUTE winner settled a thrilling, chaotic contest between Liverpool and Tottenham.
It was a dramatic spectacle, although, for some people, the occasion was marred by an inexplicable VAR failure.
Most neutrals would agree that the outcome was unfair. Spurs deserved at least a point from the game were it not for an outrageous miscarriage of justice.
Yes, this article is not referring to Saturday’s clash at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, but the game between the sides at Anfield last April
That was another breathtaking contest where Liverpool came out the right side of a 4-3 scoreline.
Yet the victory was achieved in a highly controversial manner.
There was nothing contentious about Diogo Jota’s 94th-minute winner per se, but the attacker should not have been on the field to score it.
Earlier in the game, the Portuguese player committed a clear red card offence, recklessly booting Oliver Skipp in the face and causing him to draw blood (see the video below).
But the Liverpool star escaped with a booking much to Spurs’ chagrin, with the officials neglecting to use VAR to take a second look.
“I would like an explanation and a reason why it wasn’t,” the then-Tottenham interim coach Ryan Mason said afterwards. “I can understand referees on the pitch missing it.
“My feeling at the minute was an instant red card because when your foot is five-and-a-half foot off the ground and makes contact and there is a gash, it ticks all the boxes.
“We want the VAR to help the official on the pitch at that moment, but an experienced referee and VAR haven’t given it.
“A player that shouldn’t be on the pitch decided the game.
“I felt like we didn’t get that decision, it was a big decision, a crucial decision and one you can’t really miss.
“I find it hard and impossible to really understand why.”
Were Tottenham hard done by then? Absolutely. Just as Liverpool were on Saturday, when the officials got another big decision wrong, failing to allow an onside Luis Diaz goal.
It’s also ironic that the same player who was in the thick of the controversy last time out, Jota, was very harshly sent off for a more innocuous challenge (at least for the first yellow) than the one he was booked for in April.
Following Saturday’s game, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp gave a measured response to the Diaz incident.
“I am pretty sure whoever did make that decision did not make it on purpose,” he said.
“I am pretty sure no one is making mistakes on purpose but it still happened and at this moment I don’t know why. [We] scored a fantastic goal. Would it have changed the game? I don’t know. But probably, because goals help.”
However, the statement released by Liverpool as a club on Sunday was far less understanding.
It read: “Liverpool Football Club acknowledges PGMOL’s admission of their failures last night. It is clear that the correct application of the laws of the game did not occur, resulting in sporting integrity being undermined.
“We fully accept the pressures that match officials work under but these pressures are supposed to be alleviated, not exacerbated, by the existence and implementation of VAR.
“It is therefore unsatisfactory that sufficient time was not afforded to allow the correct decision to be made and that there was no subsequent intervention.
“That such failings have already been categorised as ‘significant human error’ is also unacceptable. Any and all outcomes should be established only by the review and with full transparency.
“This is vital for the reliability of future decision-making as it applies to all clubs with learnings being used to make improvements to processes in order to ensure this kind of situation cannot occur again.
“In the meantime, we will explore the range of options available, given the clear need for escalation and resolution.”
Exactly what the club are trying to say is difficult to decipher, but the language is aggressive and seems far less diplomatic than the aforementioned Klopp response.
The revelations that both VAR Darren England and on-field referee Simon Hooper had officiated a game between Sharjah and Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates — the country with close affiliations to Man City — on Thursday, arriving back in the UK on Friday morning is certainly not good in terms of optics.
However, it is not especially unusual. English-based officials have also refereed games in Greece, Saudi Arabia and Japan in recent months.
It is surely a practice that needs to end. Even beyond the more obvious concerns in this instance, referees like footballers need to be well-rested to perform to the best of their ability — travelling a lengthy distance and back with such a short turnaround between games is bound to be exhausting and therefore increases the likelihood of loss of concentration and basic errors.
However, there is no strong evidence to suggest there was anything untoward about Saturday’s events and the VAR audio that Liverpool have requested be released is expected to back up that assertion.
Instead, it had all the hallmarks of an honest human mistake.
The biggest problem is that the play cannot be brought back once the mistake has been made.
A simple tweak to the rules would rectify the situation — give referees a one-minute window to potentially reverse their decision if a clear mistake has been made.
At the moment, by contrast, everything seems designed purely to make the game as fast and free-flowing as possible.
As appealing as those ideals may sound in principle, the rush to continue with the match is another primary reason why moments like the one on Saturday tend to occur.
Officials need to slow down, engage in detailed discussions and contemplate their decisions more methodically — fans and people in the sport will accept these slight delays if they lead to fewer egregious errors.
And that’s ultimately what it comes down to — a bad mistake. Teams have won and lost titles in the past because of similarly poor decisions. They have impacted promotion and relegation races.
Such fallibilities have always been a part of football and will continue to be. All the well-intentioned talk of introducing ex-players to help VAR officials will not change that. Human error will always be a factor in big decisions irrespective of the sophisticated technology and level of expertise in place.
A petition has been set up to replay the game while Liverpool’s inflammatory response will only give more fuel to the conspiracy theorists.
The calls for a replay are nonsensical as it would set a dangerous precedent and give Premier League clubs scope to do likewise repeatedly in the future any time an inevitable error occurs.
As ex-referee Dermot Gallagher put it when asked about Liverpool’s response to the incident on Sky Sports News: “I don’t understand what that means, to be honest. Sorry. I seriously don’t.
“It was a mistake, referees make mistakes all the time and you were saying it was my 25-year birthday at Sky yesterday, you can find loads of mine that I’ve made, honestly.
“But it was a mistake. It was a very, very, very bad mistake, there’s no doubt about that, but it’s a mistake. It is not done deliberately.”
Tottenham benefitted from inept officiating on Saturday, just as Liverpool did in April — it is an unfortunate aspect of football that no team is immune from and which cannot be prevented from happening in the long run.
