Jurgen Klopp made a remarkable request for a replay of the Liverpool-Tottenham match. Photo: PA/Nigel French
I disagree with Jurgen Klopp's request to replay Tottenham Hotspur against Liverpool. I can't imagine a situation in which the Premier League would do this.
Conducting a replay is a lengthy, potentially costly, distracting and divisive process, and while the depth of disappointment at Anfield is understandable, they will you'll have to take the hit.
What happened around the Luis Diaz incident is wrong. This is unprecedented and should be the catalyst for fundamental changes in the refereeing of games — particularly in relation to Var procedures — but the strength of feeling against replay is so wide and strong that Liverpool are fighting a battle they cannot win.
The Premier League, its other member clubs, Professional Game Match Officials Limited, the vast majority of fans and the most influential media figures will not budge.
Deep down I suspect the club knows this, which is why Klopp's announcement was unexpected. But I believe he has been shocked by the growing level of criticism leveled at Liverpool since the club issued their statement on Sunday evening.
Liverpool might as well have asked for a replay immediately after the game, given they considered “many options” in response to the statement.
While much of Liverpool's irritation will be directed at PGMOL and the way its officials mishandled a critical moment, additional irritation will be caused by the ignorance behind some of the comments towards the club and Klopp.
This Match of the Day freeze frame clearly shows that Luis Diaz was in the game before scoring against Spurs — Var agreed, but the goal was all was equally counted. Photo: BBC
Resistance to replay is understandable. Partly the logic of such opposition is unfounded.
While I don't agree with Klopp, he has every right to ask about the replay. He protects his players, he protects his club and he has activated a siege mentality at Anfield that can only help his new new team. This will be informed by his decision to talk about what he did on Wednesday.
He is also right that there has never been such an incident in English football.
>Since Saturday there has been a number of examples of shocking refereeing decisions, many of them involving Ware, which fans, pundits and journalists alike have described as worthy of repeating.
None of them are comparable to the Diaz incident, because in all other cases, the referees came together and made the wrong decision, which, in their opinion, was correct based on the rules of the game. In some cases — but not all — they later admitted the mistake and apologized. On Saturday, they got together in the heat of the moment and made the right decision based on the rules of the game, but failed to communicate it, so it was not enforced on the field.
When Ware forgot to draw the offside lines to score against Brentford against Arsenal last February, the procedure was incorrect but the goal was disallowed. It would have been the same as with Liverpool if they had drawn the line for a goal but the referee continued with the score unchanged.
Similarly, Sheffield United's 'goal' against Aston Villa in 2020 was not called by the officials because the goal line technology did not work. It would have been the same as the Diaz incident if the goal had been scored but the match ended 0-0.
Former Spurs defender Jan Vertonghen had widespread support for suggesting the League final should be replayed champions in 2019 after Var awarded Liverpool a penalty. The comparison would stand up to scrutiny if Ware actually decided it wasn't a Liverpool penalty and Mohamed Salah took it, scored and the game continued 1-0 with the referees immediately realizing it was a mistake.< /p>
The only identical incident is one in which a goal was legally scored and awarded to the team, but the score remained the same. There is no other like it.
Darren England, Var, who made a mistake in the Luis Diaz farce, was not fired, but will not be again refereeing Liverpool games this season. Photo: Pennsylvania/Richard Sellers
Some argue that this is about Liverpool's exceptionalism — that the club somehow considers itself more important than others and therefore has disproportionately exaggerated the significance of this mistake. Given the unique nature of the error, this is a deeply unfair and inaccurate representation.
Every club in this situation will feel like Liverpool, and every manager will feel as annoyed as Klopp. Why shouldn't the club explore all means to correct the mistake and ensure it never happens again? They will be deadlocked on the issue of replays, but demanding higher standards cannot be a negative thing. We all heard the sound on Monday night and it was worse than you could imagine in terms of how chaotic it was. In cricket, the third umpire follows a formula and the language is the same every time an on-field test is taken, as if there were a checklist. It's amazing that football is so slow to learn its lessons.
Everyone watching the footage sees and hears that common sense should have prevailed, the game should have been stopped and the mistake corrected immediately. The fact that the Var operator identified this within two seconds and was ignored makes the officials look terrible, and no amount of claims about the pause being “against the rules” will change that. It was also against the rules for Tottenham to take a free-kick and restart the score at 0-0 when they were thought to be 1-0 down.
It is difficult to reconcile the outpouring of «logic» that one can and what should not be done in such special circumstances, with a readiness to tear up the rule book in other cases.
Klopp and the Liverpool owners' memories are not so short as to forget that it is only three years since so many influential figures in football and the media loudly declared that the results of eight months of Premier League matchdays should be annulled due to… for Covid-19. Not to mention one game, they wanted 289 players eliminated from the record books.
Back then, there seemed to be a lot more willingness to discuss abandoning the protocols and tearing up the rule book. Fortunately, common sense prevailed and exceptional circumstances prompted the players to find a way to make the right decision in the interests of fairness and decency.
< p>On a much smaller scale, the same reasoning should have been applied in the 34th minute on Saturday — prioritizing what was known to be right above all else in order to preserve the integrity of everything that followed. Var was designed to identify and root out «clear and obvious errors» rather than multiply them.
What would have happened if they had stopped the game? Var would have been congratulated rather than vilified, and PGMOL would have been relieved.
That would have been preferable to the chaos of the last six days.
The Premier League now finds itself in a position where it must hope that Liverpool will not be involved in another title race — or Champions League football — decided by a single point.
The fact that Klopp lost the Premier League twice Manchester won the title City» in such circumstances is undoubtedly on his mind. No one knows better than he that every point is critical and worth fighting for — especially when your team has been denied it for reasons beyond your control.
Whether you agree with him or not, if that point really is the difference between success and failure this season is wishful thinking if we believe that Klopp has said all there is to say about the meaning of last Saturday.
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