Referee barely glances at VAR screen before sticking with controversial penalty call after Calvert-Lewin trips over Trent

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VAR, Liverpool

Liverpool were undeniably poor against their bitter rivals in tonight’s Merseyside derby, though Chris Kavanagh courted some controversy late in the second-half, awarding what appeared to be a soft penalty to the visitors, after a three-second consultation with a VAR screen.

The official pointed to the spot after Dominic Calvert-Lewin inadvertently tripped over Trent Alexander-Arnold who had fallen to the turf from an earlier challenge.

Kavanagh offered the VAR screen the briefest of glances before jogging back to the Reds’ box to confirm that his feelings on the matter had not changed.

In reality, we hardly deserved to take home all three points, with the tie looking like it would swing in Everton’s favour on the one goal alone, as Jurgen Klopp’s men failed to convert their chances.

READ MORE: Liverpool fans react to latest injury setback with Henderson subbed before half-time after pulling hamstring

Nonetheless, it’s an absolute travesty – though one we’ve come to expect from the officials in the Premier League – that the penalty was allowed, with the referee’s refusal to consider the VAR screen for longer than three seconds coming off as haughty rather than confident.

We’ll take responsibility for failing to impose ourselves on the fixture once more at Anfield, but it’s difficult to swallow yet another controversial call from an official – especially when they seem to be popping up game after game.

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5 Comments

  1. No wonder why England referees are not considered for major ties globally..they are poor, very very poor referees indeed,… They act as if they do their refereeing under instructions,whereby they shld make sure a certain team shld lose the game as per instruction… They are ruining the game of soccer big time…How can a ref go and check an incident for less than 3 seconds,that’s bullshit

  2. The ref supouers to be tushed because he played against us red’s but in all tine we will neve walk alone guy’s

  3. There’s only one explanation I can think of and that is the ref, Kavanagh, who was standing directly behind the foul witnessed TAA right leg appear to perform an action that led to DCL falling before he could tap in the rebound. He awards a penalty. Then Kavanagh was asked to re-consider the decision to award a penalty by the VAR team as they could see there was no attempt by TAA to impede DCL. Judging by the replay from when Kavanagh assess the foul on the VAR screen, it appears he only spent time watching one angle of the foul, which does appear to show TAA foot appearing to foul DCL, but on closer inspection, and viewing the other two angles of the same foul clearly shows NO contact by TAA on DCL.

    My own opinion, TAA doesn’t impede DCL whilst sliding in for the original foul, nor does TAA make contact with DCL, and whilst TAA right leg appears to be hacking down DCL (from the one replay Kavanagh witnessed) the knee to back of TAA head by DCL appears to cause an knee jerk reaction. One can assume, judging from the replays’ TAA doesn’t see DCL, nor was he even thinking of fouling DCL at the time…he’s been knocked on the back of his head with so much force the blow pummels him into the ground. After our last match against Everton, never thought LFC fans would be contemplating another glaringly obvious mistake by the officials. YNWA

    1. As Klopp mentioned in his post-match comments only the ref and not the rest of the world saw it as a pen.

      Ref by the way happens to be from the greater manchester area.

  4. I’ve lost count at how many times we have had fouls given against us and how many goals we have had disallowed this season. We won the title fair and square last season, but boy oh boy are we being made to pay for it this season. I’m sorry for saying this but I STRONGLY BELIEVE that the F.A and Referees are all walkers and in this together. The F.A refused to punish pickford for his horror tackle on VVD not even a yellow card then said Hendos goal was disallowed when there was nothing wrong with. Again FA did sod all about it. And it goes on and on and on. Sick to death of all the stuff that’s going on.

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