LIVERPOOL have filed a complaint over Virgil van Dijk’s disallowed goal.
The Reds captain raced away in celebration after thinking he had headed his side level away at Manchester City on Sunday.
However, his delight was cut short by a delayed offside flag against Andy Robertson.
The Scottish left-back stood in an offside position but ducked out of the way and did not appear to be in Gianluigi Donnarumma’s eyeline or interfere with play.
However, the VAR Michael Oliver stuck with the on-field decision and the goal was controversially ruled out.
Liverpool refused to blame the harrowing 3-0 defeat on that call.
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But the Daily Mail report the Anfield club submitted their views to the PGMOL, the refereeing body.
And it is understood they specifically referenced Law 11 of the football rulebook.
That section states: “A player in an offside position at the moment the ball is played or touched by a team-mate is only penalised on becoming involved in active play by:
“Interfering with play by playing or touching a ball passed or touched by a team-mate or
“Interfering with an opponent by:
- preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision or
- challenging an opponent for the ball or
- clearly attempting to play a ball which is close when this action impacts on an opponent or
- making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball.”
Liverpool want clarification from PGMOL on why they concluded Robertson had committed an offence because Donnarumma was not impeded.
The Prem champions contacted PGMOL chief Webb, arguing that Oliver should have spoken to referee Chris Kavanagh to recommend a review as it was a “subjective” decision rather than a factual one.
SunSport, however, understands that PGMOL believes the decision was a straightforward and correct one.
While Robertson did not play the ball, his presence so close to Donnarumma meant that the City keeper was impacted as he could not be sure of its final destination until it had passed the Liverpool player.
The question of whether Donnarumma would or would not have saved the header is therefore deemed to be irrelevant.
But Arne Slot believes the officials made an “obvious and clear” error – and referenced a previous occasion where a City goal was allowed to stand in virtually identical circumstances.
The Dutchman, whose side have lost seven of their last ten matches, said: “It’s difficult for me to give my view about it. I think it’s obvious and clear that the wrong decision has been made, at least in my opinion.
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“(Why do you think that?) Because he (Robertson) didn’t interfere at all with what the goalkeeper could do.
“Immediately after the game, someone showed me the goal, that what the same referee allowed City against Wolves last season.
“So it took the linesman 13 seconds to raise his flag to say it’s offside. So there was clearly communication.
“But, as I said, that could have influenced the game in a positive way for us, because in the first half we were so poor.”
Van Dijk refused to give his true views on the matter for fear of his comments being blown out of proportion.
The skipper added: “In football the officials are deciding the key decisions and we have to deal with it on the pitch.
“There is no point discussing this from my point of view. The reality is that we lost 3-0 and that is a big blow.
“It doesn’t matter what I say [about the goal] because anything I say will be in the media and the whole international break will be about my comment on the decision.
“I just focus on the fact that we lost. You guys can debate if it should have stood.”
Plenty of pundits had their say – with virtually everyone agreeing Liverpool were hard done by.
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Other than Roy Keane, who thought Robertson was “in line with the ball” and “should have got out quicker”, the likes of Gary Neville, Wayne Rooney, Micah Richards, Danny Murphy and Jamie Carragher were all shocked the goal was chalked off.
And in a humiliating moment for the Premier League, their Match Centre post on X was hit with a community note – a tool usually used to stop fake news and false statistics being spread on the social media platform.
Read the full article here
