The Premier League’s Key Match Incidents (KMI) Panel has concluded that Liverpool should’ve had a penalty awarded for an offence by Jurrien Timber on Alexander Isak in their defeat to Arsenal earlier this month.
Five minutes after Kai Havertz scored the only goal of the game at Anfield, the Swedish striker had his shirt pulled in the box by the Gunners defender, but neither on-field referee Andy Madley nor Stuart Attwell on VAR felt compelled to award a spot kick despite the transgression being clear.
The Reds’ head coach Andoni Iraola went as far as claiming that a penalty would’ve been awarded had our number 9 gone to ground instead of staying on his feet when his jersey was grabbed.
KMI Panel almost unanimous on Isak incident
On Wednesday, the Premier League published the findings of several incidents reviewed by the KMI Panel, including the one involving Isak and Timber on 1 November.
Their verdict reads (via premierleague.com): ‘The panel felt that a penalty should have been awarded for a holding action by Timber on Isak, 4:1. One panellist considered the short-lived holding to lack clear impact on the ability of Isak to progress.
‘The majority also felt that VAR should have intervened to recommend an on-field review, 3:2, on the basis that it was a clear and obvious error. Two panellists considered that the subjectivity in assessing impact meant this did not meet the high threshold for VAR intervention.’
The KMI Panel concluded: ‘In this instance the panel deemed that Timber’s challenge on Isak met the threshold for a holding offence and should have resulted in a penalty kick, both on-field and through VAR intervention.’
Want more Empire of the Kop coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trust
Talk about stating the bloody obvious…
How nice of the KMI Panel to come back and tell us what was so damn obvious at the time of the incident – or at least obvious to anyone not named Andy Madley or Stuart Attwell, or whichever member of the panel felt that the right decision was made on the day.
How that individual concluded that Timber’s actions lacked ‘clear impact on the ability of Isak to progress’ is baffling – the Liverpool striker would surely have gotten on the end of Bradley Barcola’s cross had his shirt not been so blatantly pulled.
The panel’s verdict today won’t come as much consolation to anyone involved with the Reds, who were deprived of a legitimate penalty which – if converted – could’ve significantly altered the course of a match that they lost 1-0.
It’s not much good being told in retrospect that the officials got it wrong; these are clear decisions that professional referees should be capable of getting correct at the time, especially when they have the fallback option of VAR.
We get that many incidents are subjective and that consensus will never be achieved when it comes to refereeing in the Premier League, but there’s simply no excuse for botching calls like the Timber/Isak incident 10 days ago.
Sort it out, Howard Webb.