BT Sports and BBC pundit Gary Lineker has taken a swipe at VAR after the technology was utilised to rule out a Crystal Palace goal over the weekend.
The Eagles thought they had drawn first blood against Liverpool, but it was ruled out after the officials discovered Dejan Lovren had been fouled in the area.
Former Leicester City man Lineker was quick to jump on social media to call out the technology, and label the users of it “anti-goal merchants“.
Took a while, but VAR rules out a Palace goal against Liverpool. If you look for long enough the anti-goal merchants will find something. 🙄
— Gary Lineker 💙💛 (@GaryLineker) November 23, 2019
There hasn’t been a week that has gone by in which something controversial hasn’t happened, relating to VAR, and the Reds seem to be getting a bit of grief for it.
Putting aside the fact Roberto Firmino’s armpit was offside a few weeks ago, the ruling out of Palace’s goal in our 2-1 win may be the first time we’ve benefited from VAR this season as in the way of points.
The win against the Londonders means we remain eight points clear of Leicester, and now sit nine ahead of Man City and have 11 on Chelsea.
Opinion
It’s disappointing to see Gary take this route, to be honest – he’s usually a bit more level-headed than this. When looking back at the footage, you can clearly see Lovren being pushed. It is a foul.
It doesn’t matter if the players involved affected the play – the Liverpool man was fouled.