Jamie Carragher was left flabbergasted by one refereeing decision during Liverpool’s win over Chelsea at Anfield today.
The Reds triumped 2-1 on an eventful evening on Merseyside, with the official having to make several big calls during the game.
One of those was the initial awarding of a penalty against Robert Sanchez after he clattered into Curtis Jones just before half-time, but the on-field decision was overturned after a VAR review.
Carragher ‘surprised’ by penalty call being reversed
Upon analysing the incident afterwards on Sky Sports, Carragher felt that the Chelsea goalkeeper was fortunate to have the original call reversed.
The pundit said: “Considering the referee’s given the penalty – it looks like he touches it slightly on his calf – and to then take Curtis Jones out like that…
“I go back to my day, making tackles, and you used to say years ago as a player, ‘I won the ball, ref’ and you just take someone out and say ‘I won the ball first’. Those days are well gone. You can’t get away with just getting the ball first, and then to take Curtis Jones out the way the way that he did…
“I understand he’s got nowhere else to go, but he comes in and just takes him out. The fact that the referee gave it, I’m very surprised they overturned it. I think it should’ve been a penalty.”
Original decision should’ve stood, but it didn’t cost Liverpool
To be fair to on-field referee John Brooks, it looked a certain penalty in realtime, and the perception of the offence looked somewhat different when viewed from a variety of angles.
Although Sanchez got some of the ball – the criterion which prompted VAR to overturn the initial decision – he still clattered into Jones with enough force that he could’ve caused the Liverpool midfielder an injury, which thankfully didn’t happen.
On another day, that call could very easily have remained in the Reds’ favour, but the good news is that ultimately it didn’t cost us in the final reckoning, with our number 17 exacting his own revenge by scoring the winning goal shortly after half-time.