The PGMOL are apparently on the side of both Manchester City and Arsenal and do not want Liverpool to win the Premier League.
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PGMOL are anti-Liverpool
It is no surprise that Tierney didn’t overturn the yellow card. He only took a few minutes to review the footage, if indeed he even looked at it, and somehow didn’t deem the challenge bad enough to send the incompetent referee to the screen.
Tierney has a long history of biased decisions against Liverpool along with other notable referees Stuart Attwell and John Brooks, yet the same people are involved time and again with important Liverpool games.
The problem is there is no accountability for referees. Why isn’t the VAR conversation made available live? Why aren’t referees independently monitored rather than PGMOL coming out with spurious statements about how few mistakes they make. Not my experience at all.
Week in week out I see referees fail to give obvious free kicks to Liverpool yet more than happy to give free kicks to the opponent for obvious dives. Any complaints result in a yellow card for the Liverpool player.
The second problem is the ‘clear and obvious’ buffoonery we are forced to live with. Why not just correct wrong decisions?
Clearly there is a problem with PGMOL which runs deeply through the organisation and often appears to benefit Manchester City. How many times do we see games involving Manchester teams refereed by officials from the Manchester area? And there are many.
I remember Howard Webb on his talking tour about his time as a referee telling a story and laughing as he recounted that he ‘couldn’t bring himself to give Liverpool a penalty against Arsenal even though it was clearly a penalty’. Is this someone who is fit to be in charge of our top flight referees?
Derek
…They are just total cheats it’s so obvious every season the same teams get these shocking decisions go against them in other words var was trying to cheat Liverpool out of 3 points so Arsenal can catch up because they clearly don’t want Liverpool to win the league.
It’s about time they made the officials take responsibility for these decisions as all you ever get is oh sorry we got it wrong that’s OK but that could have easily cost Liverpool 3 points which I’m sure was their objective. PGMOL are just corrupt.
Kevin Sale
Not a loon but…
With the PGMOL u-turn on the blatant Tarkowski red card, a quick stat for you.
In almost 40 games, Paul Tierney as the VAR has NEVER given a single call in Liverpool’s favour.
Now, I’m not going to get all tin-foil-hat-wearing Arsenal-supporting foaming-at-mouth PGMOL-conspiracy loon on you (do you seriously think that they could ever be that organised?). However, this is such a statistically improbable fact, and last night’s decision was so obvious, does it not suggest some kind of (at best unconscious) bias?
Matt D, London
What about Pickford too?
Like others, especially Minty, have pointed out, it’s head scratchingly confusing why Tarkowski didn’t see red for the tackle on Mac Allister. Contrast the speed, intensity and aggression of Tarkowski, with the straight red Mac Allister himself was shown against Bournemouth last season! Did the ref and VAR think it was too early in the game and didn’t want to spoil it? Only they will know.
But I’m nearly equally miffed about the Pickford tackle on Darwin Nunez. The ref had blown the whistle, and Nunez got a yellow for not stopping play. But it was obvious neither player heard it, and Pickford’s kick wasn’t even in the same postcode as the ball. So why wasn’t he sent off?
Terrible officiating. I hate it when managers and fans blame a loss on one ref error and ignore their team’s whole match performance, and at least this didn’t affect the result, but heck it was bad.
Michael, LFC
…It’s never easy to be a ref, but they really should realise they aren’t doing their colleagues any favours by not calling them to the monitor. It’s ok for the ref on the field to be wrong now and then with the speed of the game, it’s moronic for his colleagues in front of the screen not to correct him out of “loyalty” to him.
That Tarkowski challenge looks like a strong yellow to red in real time, but the replay makes it very clear. I appreciate that Barrott would hesitate to get a red out 10min in his first derby, but Tierney really should have stepped up. If he didn’t because a yellow was given, then that’s a terrible call. And surely this is an argument to change the rule to something closer to what rugby has implemented with the “bunker” review. Even if the final decision ends up being to stick with a yellow, the odds are you did deserve 10min off the pitch to begin with.
I’m also very minded to think the refs realised at half time they had screwed up and were looking to make up for it. It’s the only reason that makes sense for letting the Liverpool goal stand despite an at first offside Diaz so obviously influencing play in the build up to the goal. I’d have been fuming if it had been given the other way around.
How Pickford yet again got away with one is beyond me. As has been said, just because play has been stopped doesn’t mean you can’t continue to award yellow cards. If refs are fine handing them out to players on the bench, then why not there?
Nick
VAR from ideal
How come it takes 10 seconds to ‘clear’ Tarky of a violent reckless out of control lunge, but it will take up to 8 minutes to decide whether someone somewhere might have be literally mm offside?
Dan, London
Everton were also dicked by the refsIn amongst the whining and frothing from the armchair Reds, it’s worth remembering that we also got d*cked around last night.
Beto’s goal- started his run from HIS OWN HALF.
Ten second review, no lines despite it being extremely tight, no shot showing the point of release of the through ball.
Zero coverage of Mac Allister hauling Tarky down in the box.
No card for perma foul and overrated whingebag Van Dijk.
No card for Diaz and his relentless deckchair folding up.
No flag for a player so far offside, and absolutely interfering with play for their goal.
The cryarsing, the piped in audio from LFCTv to make it sound like them lot can make an atmosphere, the “won’t someone think of the children” over reaction to a clearance (not a challenge or a tackle remember) that led to a coming together.
It’s no wonder people a) despise the RS, and b) won’t pay for Sky anymore.
So glad we only have to play them twice a year.
Ian, EFC
Only easy when Liverpool win it…
So, after repeatedly reading and recently listening (Paul Merson this time) fans, pundits, media all suggesting that Liverpool have won the league because there’s no competition. I got to wondering how often this happens.
The top 5 biggest gaps in Premier League history between 1st and second actually surprised me because they’re bigger than I expected.
Now I searched for ages to find opinions about these seasons and only twice does the media or anyone else suggest the title was won because of a lack of competition or diminish the title in any way. For sake of making it easy I’ve assumed this season ends with a 12 point gap.
1. Man City 2018/19 – 19 point gap
City finished a whopping 19 points above second place but no matter how much I searched I couldn’t find a single time where it was suggested they won because the league was weak. It was always Pep’s genius and City’s brilliance.
(Presume you mean 2017/18 and to be fair, City got 100 points and 106 goals; they were probably the best team in Premier League history – Ed)
2. Man United 99/00 – 18 point gap
Again a mahoooosive gap, yet no complaints about an easy league with no competition, just the wonder that is Fergie.
3. Liverpool 19/20 – 18 points
What’s that? Only won because of COVID despite COVID only affecting the last 20% of games and Liverpool were already 13 points clear?
4 and 5. City 20/21 & Chelsea 04/05
12 points
Look at how brilliant Pep is! Wow Jose sure is the goat!
6. Liverpool 24/25 – 12 points
Gee look at how easy the league is this year.
I get that it doesn’t really matter, who cares what rival fans, pundits, and the entire media think. But it sure is odd that the only team who ever gets their league wins diminished or discredited is Liverpool. Like I said I actively went looking for people saying negative things about other league wins and couldn’t find it. If our league win this year is due to a weak league evidenced by the points gap then all of the aforementioned league titles must have been even easier and even less competitive.
But people will do mental back flips to somehow say those were fine examples of brilliant teams and managers.
Lee
READ: Liverpool top Premier League winners, forcing hamstrung Arsenal onto losers list