By Samuel A. October 1, 2023
The match between Tottenham and Liverpool on Saturday was a classic. After being reduced to nine players, Liverpool didn’t go down without a fight, until the end of the match saw Joel Matip concede a 96th minute own goal as Tottenham edged out a 2-1 win in a Premier League thriller to go second in the table above their rivals Arsenal. However, it all could have been different and Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp had already slammed “the most unfair circumstances, crazy decisions,” before referee body PGMOL officially apologised for Luis Diaz’s first-half strike being disallowed for offside.
With Liverpool reduced to 10 men and the score at 0-0 in the first half of the English Premier League match against Tottenham, forward Luis Díaz converted a Mohamed Salah through ball to give his team an unlikely lead, just as Liverpool and everyone watching thought, but the goal was controversially ruled out for offside, and after Saturday’s match, English soccer’s refereeing body, the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), admitted that a “significant human error” by the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) had led to the goal not being allowed. This proved to be a costly mistake for a Liverpool team which ended the match with just nine men on the pitch and lost 2-1 thanks to a Joel Matip own goal with seconds to play.
“PGMOL acknowledge a significant human error occurred during the first half of Tottenham Hotspur v Liverpool,” the organization said. “The goal by Luis Díaz was disallowed for offside by the on-field team of match officials. This was a clear and obvious factual error and should have resulted in the goal being awarded through VAR intervention, however, the VAR failed to intervene.” The body concluded that it would “conduct a full review into the circumstances which led to the error.”
The usual process was followed, with lines being drawn on the screen to determine whether the goal was offside, but a ‘check complete’ was confirmed as Darren England, the VAR, wrongly thought referee Simon Hooper had already given the goal. A VAR intervention would have led to the goal being awarded. According to Reuters, PGMOL said on Sunday that England and his assistant, Dan Cook, had been replaced for two Premier League games.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp however saw the positive side of it as he praised the team for their attitude in a match which had a lot of decisions go against them. With Manchester City losing earlier in the day, victory for Liverpool would have moved the Reds to the top of the table. Instead, in a match which had Curtis Jones sent off in the first half and Diogo Jota in the second half, reducing Liverpool to nine men with over 20 minutes of the match remaining, the Reds fell to a painful defeat. “So many things happened today which are not going our way,” Jurgen Klopp said in his post match interview. “So close but, in the end, still nothing.” He added of the offside decision: “I saw it, I know whoever made the mistake didn’t do it on purpose. So many things happened on the pitch which would have decided just differently. How can Diogo Jota in this game go off the pitch with two yellow cards? The first, he barely touched him and it was for sure not his fault. That’s not a yellow card. That’s what’s really a problem. When did you last hear of a game with 11 v 9? Here today we were close to 11 v 8. There was no horrible fouls. The result is gone, but the performance will stay with me forever. I loved our attitude, our desire.”
Liverpool would look to go back to winning ways in next week’s Premier League game Vs Brighton, who also surprisingly lost 6-1 to Villa on Saturday.
