Dermot Gallagher, a former Premier League referee, has endorsed Anthony Taylor’s decision not to give Brighton a penalty in the 2-2 draw with Liverpool.
When Kaoru Mitoma’s shot rebounded off Virgil van Dijk’s leg and injured his hand, the debate erupted. Brighton manager Roberto De Zerbi was visibly upset after a penalty was not awarded and was shown a yellow card for his objections.
However, Gallagher, speaking on Sky Sports’ ‘Ref Watch,’ endorsed the on-field judgment, arguing that a penalty would be shocking in that situation.
“The evidence is clear for all to see.” It clearly contacts his thigh, his arm is by his side, it bounces a few feet and hits him, there’s no mistake about it, but you’d be shocked if a penalty was issued for that.”
Liverpool did receive a penalty during the game when Dominik Szoboszlai was fouled by Pascal Groß. Mohamed Salah converted the penalty kick, but Groß avoided a red card despite seemingly denying a clear goalscoring opportunity.
The VAR authorities ruled that it was not a case of denying an apparent goalscoring opportunity since Szoboszlai was going away from goal inside the penalty area, according to the ECHO.
Liverpool.com says: “Despite the recent controversy surrounding VAR, it’s good to know that the correct decision was made for the Van Dijk handball.”
It did strike Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard’s hand, but only after coming up off his thigh and from a close range shot, giving him no time to react. Following last week’s debacle, another decision going against the Reds would have been absurd.
However, the fact that Groß was not sent off — in fact, he did not even receive a yellow card — was awful enough. When it comes to bad decisions, it never rains, but it pours.
You may notice the message below on a few Liverpool.com stories. We like to experiment, and this is part of a trial to see if AI can assist speed up the publication process. We will always state where this occurs.
This article was created using AI techniques and is based on a piece originally published by Tom Cavilla for the Liverpool ECHO. The original article can be found by clicking here. Before it was published, this item was evaluated by a Liverpool.com news editor. Any mistakes should be reported to
Leave a Reply