Liverpool saw off Everton in April’s Merseyside derby but Howard Webb admits the referees and VAR made an error by not showing a red card – but backed their other major call
The Merseyside derby at the start of April ended with Liverpool landing a narrow 1-0 win over Everton – owing to Diogo Jota‘s match winner. The contest wasn’t without refereeing controversy though as PGMOL chief Howard Webb confessed VAR made a serious blunder.
Liverpool’s win allowed them to remain in control of the Premier League title race and atoned for the points they let slip at Goodison Park weeks before as the Toffees scored in the eighth minute of added time at Goodison Park to rescue a point.
There would be no repeat but the visitors felt aggrieved by the manner of Jota’s winning strike. The Portuguese star was sent though after he received a backheel from Luis Diaz before dodging tackles and slotting home.
Replays showed Diaz had been standing in an offside position earlier in the build-up, but he was judged not to have been interfering with play and the goal was allowed to stand. The linesman never put his flag up and the offside check was only precautionary with nothing needing to be flagged.
Webb backed his officials on this occasion as he said on Match Officials Mic’d Up: “This all comes down to the point that just being in an offside position, which Luis Diaz is, is not in itself sufficient to be penalised.
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“It’s all about what you do whilst in that position and you have to do one of the things here [listed in the video], to be penalised for offside interfering with an opponent. We don’t see Luis Diaz do any of these things whilst in the offside position, he just stands there.
“Now you can feel a little bit sorry for Tarkowski here because he stretches out to stop the ball going through to Luis Diaz, but that ship sails some time ago, whereby if you’re just in that offside position and don’t do anything behind a defender you won’t be penalised.”
Liverpool though will feel as though they should’ve been playing against ten men long before that. Their players were up in arms as James Tarkowski slid through to challenge Alexis Mac Allister. The defender won the ball, but then caught the Argentine high.
Originally a yellow card was given before VAR reviewed the challenge and concluded that Tarkowski had won the ball first and that the subsequent contact was unavoidable. Webb though insists they put too much onus on whether he won the ball with the tackle being branded reckless.
He admitted: “This is a red-card challenge. It’s an error by the officials not to send Tarkowski off. From the outset with this show, we’ve committed to showing good examples of VAR use and also where we don’t use it in the right way, and this was one of those examples.
“The referee recognises on the field that Tarkowski plays the ball and feels that the way he does so is reckless. The VAR then checks that on-field decision of a yellow card and puts too much focus on the fact that Tarkowski plays the ball.
“But Tarkowski makes a choice to play the ball in that way. Players have to consider their opponent’s safety, even when playing the ball. Tarkowski lunges into the challenge using excessive force and endangers Mac Allister’s safety. It should have been a red card.”
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