Liverpool had to wait for their first goal against Fulham to be confirmed, but few were as surprised as Florian Wirtz and Jamie Carragher when it was given
Florian Wirtz appearing to have strayed offside during Fulham vs Liverpool
Florian Wirtz looked offside when he scored Liverpool's first goal
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Neither Florian Wirtz nor Jamie Carragher were convinced Liverpool's first goal against Fulham was onside. Wirtz, 22, swept in his second goal for the Reds to level proceedings at Craven Cottage.
At the time, former Liverpool ace Harry Wilson had given the west Londoners the lead when he narrowly beat the Reds' offside trap and fired a strong finish past Alisson. After half-time, Conor Bradley tiptoed his way towards the Fulham defence and fed Wirtz down the right with a flick, giving the German the opportunity to beat Bernd Leno.
There was no celebration from the £116million man as he admitted after the game he thought he was offside.
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However, VAR's automated offside system adjudged Wirtz to be fractionally onside, despite initial freeze frames and replays suggesting he had strayed offside too early. When asked about the goal, the ex-Bayer Leverkusen midfielder said: "I was sure it was offside so I didn't even celebrate."
After the match, Carragher said: "I still can’t work out how this is not offside. I think the reason why we can’t quite work it out is because we’ve got the lines of the grass.
"A lot of the time you don’t have that. You’re trying to get the angle of the camera and maybe it plays tricks with you. But it just looks offside."
Many will still look at the freezeframes and believe Wirtz was in front of the Fulham defenders when Bradley threaded his pass through. However, there is an explanation for the rule, which dates back to recent changes in what's considered offside.
When VAR was first introduced, officials used cross lines to measure the deepest body part of the defender and the part of the attacker's body closest to goal. The awkward process resulted in the lines for the defenders and the attackers often being placed on top of each other, with goals being ruled out for offside by miniscule margins.
From the 2021-22 campaign onwards, all divisions added in a benefit of the doubt of around 5cm to the offside technology. If the two lines touched, the advantage went to the attacking player, who would be classed as onside.
Technology is more accurate than the naked eye but it's not 100% accurate, due to the number of camera frames per second in the technology used, as well as difficulty of pausing a replay at the precise moment a ball is played.
Florian Wirtz scores Liverpool's equalizer against Fulham
Wirtz took his goal well(Image: Getty Images)
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At the time, the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) estimated an additional 20 goals would be allowed as a result of the new tolerance.
At first, the introduction of semi-automated offsides threatened to overhaul this allowance, particularly with other nations like Germany, Spain and Italy using it to the nearest millimetre.
But in the Premier League, the tolerance level was built into the technology. As impressive as the technology is, it's still not infallible. Wirtz's goal may be a classic example of the benefit of the doubt being given to the forward.