Murillo of Nottingham Forest celebrates scoring his team's first goal during the Premier League match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Anfield on November 22, 2025 in Liverpool, England.placeholder image
Murillo of Nottingham Forest celebrates scoring his team's first goal during the Premier League match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Anfield on November 22, 2025 in Liverpool, England. | Getty Images
Liverpool went 1-0 down to Nottingham Forest at Anfield just a couple of weeks after seeing a goal controversially ruled out in their loss to Man City
Liverpool went 1-0 down to Nottingham Forest at Anfield on Saturday afternoon in what can be viewed as laughable circumstances after what happened between the Reds and Manchester City before the international break.
The Reds were 1-0 down at City two weeks ago and thought they’d got back in the game when Virgil van Dijk headed in from Mohamed Salah’s corner. However, the goal was ruled out because Andy Robertson was stood in an offside position and deemed to be impacting the goalkeeper.
He said: "Interfering with an opponent where the offside position player doesn't play the ball and the officials have to make a judgment whether the actions of that player impact an opponent, are some of the most subjective decisions that we have to make.
"Therefore, it's no surprise that some people believe this goal should have stood, so I think it's important that we look at the facts of what actually happened in this situation.
"We know the corner comes in and the ball reaches Van Dijk. As the ball's coming across the penalty area, the Manchester City players move out, they leave Robertson in that offside position in the heart of the six-yard box.
"When Van Dijk heads the ball forward, that's the moment when we have to make an offside judgment about Robertson and about what he's doing there.
"We know he doesn't touch the ball but what does he do? Well, as the ball moves towards him, three yards out from goal, right in the middle of the six-yard box, he makes that clear action to duck below the ball.
"The ball goes just over his head, and the ball finds the goal in the half of the six-yard box where he is. Then, the officials have to make a judgment - did that clear action impact on Donnarumma, the goalkeeper, and his ability to save the ball? And that's where the subjectivity comes into play.
"Obviously that's the conclusion they drew on that. They looked at that position, they looked at that action, so close to the goalkeeper, and they formed that opinion.
"I know that's not a view held by everybody but I think it's not unreasonable to understand why they would form that conclusion.
"The player is so close to the goalkeeper, the ball's coming right towards him and he has to duck to get out of the way of the ball - and they form the conclusion that that impacts Donnarumma's ability just to dive towards the ball and make that save.
"And then, of course, once they've made that on-field decision, the job of the VAR is to look at that and decide, was the outcome of offside clearly and obviously wrong?
"Only Donnarumma truly knows if he was impacted by this and, of course, we have to look at the factual evidence, and when we see that factual evidence of that position of the player ducking below the ball, so close to the goalkeeper, the VAR determines that the outcome of offside is not clearly and obviously wrong, and they stay out of it."
With the precedent seemingly set by the referees’ chief, Liverpool went 1-0 down to Forest at Anfield when Murillo fired in after Liverpool failed to deal with a corner. However, a Forest player was stood in front of Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson Becker as the ball was struck and the Reds goalkeeper was powerless to stop the shot.
Frankly, it is absolutely laughable that after two weeks of debate over Van Dijk’s disallowed goal that a similar incident happens in Liverpool’s next game - but goes against Arne Slot’s side.
This writer believes that both goals should have stood but with Webb coming out to defend the ruling out of Van Dijk’s goal at City - then surely a precedent has been set? It appears not.
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