Virgil van Dijk may well be wondering how a near-replica of the incident which saw him sent off against Newcastle last month went unpunished in Liverpool’s defeat at Tottenham on Saturday evening.
In one of numerous incidents from the game in north London which summed up the calamitous performance of the refereeing team, Micky van de Ven appeared to narrowly win the ball ahead of Joe Gomez in a 50-50.
There was contact between the two players as they crashed into each other, with the Spurs defender grimacing as he fell to the turf.
The incident sparked echoes of the one which saw Van Dijk dismissed at St James’ Park five weeks ago when, despite him appearing to get a toe to the ball, he was adjudged to have denied a clear goalscoring opportunity and duly shown a red card.
In a nutshell, there is the inconsistency of Premier League refereeing.
You can view the clip of Van de Ven’s tackle below, via @MrBoywunder on Twitter/X: