Referee Paul Tierney and his VAR team may have made a big mistake by not sending off Oliver Skipp in the recent Liverpool match.
What's the latest on VAR and Liverpool?
The Reds more than played their part in one of the Premier League games of the season over the weekend as they beat Tottenham Hotspur 4-3.
It had initially looked as though Jurgen Klopp and co would be cruising to a ridiculously easy win as they scored three times inside the first 15 minutes to race to a 3-0 lead.
However, Spurs fought their way back over the remainder of the game and looked to have picked up an improbable point when Richarlison netted a 93rd-minute equaliser.
Despite that, in an incredible ending to the affair, Diogo Jota somehow found the time to then net a winner for Liverpool with only seconds left on the clock.
However, the Reds perhaps could have been spared all that stress, had Skipp been sent off earlier on in the game for a terrible lunge.
skipp shouldn't even be on the pitch😭 pic.twitter.com/Vf8vHndXye— ~ (@kaannlfc) April 30, 2023
Did Skipp deserve a red card?
As seen in the footage above, shared on Twitter, with the score still at 3-0 and Liverpool in complete control, the Spurs midfielder mistimes a challenge.
Indeed, Skipp plants his studs high up onto Luis Diaz's shin in a type of foul that has resulted in red cards before – see, for example, the dismissal Casemiro earned earlier in the season for Manchester United against Southampton.
However, referee Tierney did not decide to add to Tottenham's woes at Anfield and pull out the red card on this occasion and VAR evidently felt as though it was not enough of a mistake to overturn.
Despite eventually getting the win, Liverpool were certainly made to work for it and had Skipp been sent off, it's unlikely Spurs would have been able to mount any sort of comeback.
After the game, Klopp certainly didn't seem to be happy with the officiating. He told Sky Sports (via BBC Sport): "We have our history with Tierney, I really don't know what he has against us.
"He has said there [are] no problems but that cannot be true.
"How he looks at me, I don't understand it. In England nobody has to clarify these situations, it's really tricky and hard to understand.
"What he said to me when he gave me the yellow card is not OK."