Liverpool have contacted referees’ chairman Howard Webb to raise concerns over the interpretation of the rules surrounding Virgil van Dijk’s disallowed goal in the 3-0 defeat by Manchester City.
The Holland captain’s header was disallowed on the pitch and reviewed by VAR because Andy Robertson was standing in an offside position and went under the ball.
It was a crucial moment at 1-0, with manager Arne Slott later stating that it was “clear and obvious that a wrong decision was made”.
A PGMOL statement at the time claimed that Robertson “appeared to take an obvious action directly in front of the goalkeeper”, but Liverpool, it seems, rejected that assumption.
They do not accept any element of the criteria relating to Law 11, as to what constitutes offside, and believe that the usual checks and balances in the VAR process were not carried out.
Having scrutinized all the available footage, the club deny claims that goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma’s view was impaired by Robertson as he was not in the Italian’s line of sight.
The on-field decision was offside, but video assistant referee Michael Oliver did not invite Chris Kavanagh to review the incident on the pitchside monitor. Liverpool argue that if he had been asked, a different result would have been achieved.
PGMOL has been contacted for comment.
Another VAR decision was made against Liverpool on Sunday, when City conceded a penalty in the first half.
Kavanagh shook the game early, but then Jeremy Duko was cautioned by Liverpool goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili.
After VAR intervention, Kavanagh gave City a spot-kick, but Mamardashvili made up for his earlier error by keeping out Erling Holland’s effort.
Holland opened the scoring shortly after, before Nico Gonzalez and Duko also got on the scoresheet to condemn Liverpool to their fifth league defeat of the season.
