Foot & Soccer Soccer Match Reports, Football News
Premier League referee Tony Harrington. (Photograph by Marc Atkins/Getty Photos)
Virgil van Dijk has accused referee Tony Harrington of being unable to correctly handle Liverpool’s conflict with Fulham attributable to being ‘nervous’.
The Reds needed to accept a 2-2 attract a ding-dong battle at Anfield, twice coming from behind to safe some extent.
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In actuality, Liverpool will most likely be fairly pleased with a draw given Andy Robertson’s Seventeenth-minute pink card, which got here simply six minutes after Andreas Pereira had given Fulham the lead.
However Liverpool nonetheless managed 16 pictures and a couple of.26 xG and on one other day, may simply have picked up an enormous victory.
Robertson was despatched off for denying Fulham a goalscoring alternative when he introduced down Harry Wilson contained in the penalty space.
Whereas that call was fairly clear-cut, Liverpool nonetheless had loads of purpose to be pissed off with Harrington within the opening minutes.
Robertson appeared to select up an harm within the second minute when Issa Diop caught him with a sturdy problem, selecting up a yellow card.
Simply minutes later, Pereira was additionally proven a yellow card as he caught the heels of Ryan Gravenberch in what was an terrible problem.
Former referee Mike Dean believes Pereira ought to have been given his marching orders for the problem.
“Pereira caught Gravenberch on the highest of his Achilles and scraped down. He’s nowhere close to the ball. He knew what he was doing. It’s 100% a pink card,” Dean instructed Sky Sports activities (through Empire of the Kop).
Two minutes later, Pereira opened the scoring for Fulham, whereas inside eight minutes, Robertson had been despatched off.
Virgil van Dijk blasts ‘nervous’ referee Tony Harrington
Andy Robertson is distributed off by Tony Harrington. (Photograph by Alex Livesey/Getty Photos)
It was a chaotic opening to the match, to say the least, and one which, based on Van Dijk, Harrington didn’t pay money for, exhibiting clear indicators of nerves.
“An excellent comeback may be very optimistic. It’s disappointing having 10 males however we confirmed combat, stored making an attempt to create probabilities. Might have been extra however we take the purpose and transfer on,” Van Dijk stated after the match (through BBC Sport).
“Keep calm. It’s simpler to say than do it. It was all the time going to be powerful towards them. We noticed it final yr and final week towards Arsenal. We needed to flip it round and maintain combating. We tried.
“I had conversations with the gamers of Fulham and we felt just like the referee was nervous. He couldn’t correctly talk with Robertson I felt. We will’t put the blame on the referee. All of us discuss defending the referee however I couldn’t converse to him. It shouldn’t be an enormous factor as a result of he isn’t why we dropped factors.
“It’s what it’s. We take the factors, get well shortly and be prepared for the sport on Wednesday.”
