In light of the “insane” decision to disallow Harvey Elliott’s goal, Jurgen Klopp has declared that the referees for Liverpool’s victory over Burnley have “never played football.”
Darwin Nunez and Diogo Jota goals put the Reds ahead 2-0 at Turf Moor on Boxing Day, putting them back atop the Premier League standings.
But if two of the Merseyside team’s goals hadn’t been overruled, the score might have been higher.
Cody Gakpo’s goal in the first half was disallowed by referee Paul Tierney because Darwin Nunez had fouled Charlie Taylor. After reviewing the goal, VAR declined to reverse the ruling and asked Tierney to see it on his pitchside monitor.
Harvey Elliott then saw a goal disallowed early in the second half after Mohamed Salah was found to have been standing offside and obstructing James Trafford’s vision.
Although Jordan Beyer’s push on Salah caused him to go beyond the Clarets defence, VAR officer Nick Hopton missed the offside call.
After the match, Klopp was questioned by Amazon Prime regarding Elliott’s goal that was disallowed. It was also shown that Salah had been shoved in the back.
The German lashed out at the “insane” choice, failing to temper his criticism of the officials.
“Only a person who has never played football could call this offside,” he stated.
However, they will ultimately inform us that “it’s an offside situation” or something similar.
That’s crazy what you see. This man may think, “Oh, offside rule, let me see, page seven, there’s somebody between him and the goalie,” if he has never played football.
“What an absurd decision that was.”
“Why do referees create their own view on something?” he said.
We all watch football, therefore we need the referees, but we also need them to interpret the rules correctly.
It’s like, wow, how can you make no objective in this situation? “That’s a clear goal,” I would have said if it had been our responsibility.
“Handball is sometimes just handball along with other things.”
Fortunately for Klopp and his team, the judgements made against them had little effect on the outcome, as the Reds are now two points ahead of Arsenal.