Fulham players made honest referee admission to Van Dijk immediately after Robertson red card

Liverpool may be left rueing what could have been an ideal opportunity to put the pressure on Chelsea with a big three points secured against Fulham.

It wasn’t meant to be for Arne Slot’s men, who were always going to be facing an uphill battle to fight back with only 10 men on the pitch.

Andy Robertson, who was correctly shown a red card after taking out Harry Wilson and denying the Welshman a clear goalscoring opportunity, may have quite the bone to pick with on-pitch official Tony Harrington.

The referee, with the complicity of VAR, failed to penalise what appeared to be red card-worthy offences firstly from Issa Diop and then from goalscorer Andreas Pereira against Ryan Gravenberch.

There can be no complaints over the call that left Liverpool short a man, but a little consistency in decisive decision-making surely wouldn’t do the game any harm.

Poor officiating didn’t help Liverpool

Evidently, Virgil van Dijk and Fulham’s players agreed to a certain extent, judging by conversations that took place on the pitch.

Harrington was branded ‘nervous’ by both parties in what was an erratic affair at Anfield on Saturday.

“I had conversations with the players of Fulham and we felt like the referee was nervous. He couldn’t properly communicate with Robertson I felt,” the Dutchman’s comments were relayed by BBC Sport.

“We can’t put the blame on the referee. We all speak about protecting the referee but I couldn’t speak to him. It shouldn’t be a big thing because he isn’t why we dropped points.”

Liverpool are set to next take on Southampton in the quarter-final of the Carabao Cup before a Premier League rendezvous with Tottenham next Sunday.

The Premier League must raise standard of officiating

We’ve said it a million times before – but we’re sick and tired of seeing games negatively impacted by the quality of officiating.

Yes, we’ve ourselves to blame for jumping into a hole we’d have to later climb out of in the second half, but there’s really no excusing the decision-making for the Pereira and Diop decisions, in our view at least.

Protect referees, absolutely. But then at least show some commitment to improving the standard of referees entering the English top-flight.

Ultimately, it doesn’t serve the interests of the Premier League product, does it?

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