Liverpool head coach Arne Slot took a sarcastic swipe at match referee Tony Harrington after the 2-2 draw with Fulham. Harrington made numerous bad calls that tilted the game in favour of the West London club, eventually costing two points.
Fulham survived two red card incidents in the first 10 minutes of the game as Harrington showed leniency towards them. Both the tackles from Fulham’s Issa Diop and Andreas Perreira involved harmful recklessness with no desire to play the ball.
While referees sometimes face unfair criticism for subjective decisions, some of their calls are objectively wrong. Harrington produced a straight red card to Andy Robertson in the 17th minute which Liverpool accepted as the right decision.
Nevertheless, the game involved many referee calls which hurt Liverpool’s momentum and created frustration against an on-form Premier League side. The Reds’ players displayed impressive character and desire to recover despite all odds, earning two equalizers despite the massive disadvantage.
Speaking to the media after the game(via YouTube), Slot sarcastically mocked the decision from the referee which involved Diop. He said:
“If I look back at the 100 minutes, I saw I wasn’t surprised it wasn’t a red card. It’s up to you how you judge that.”
Slot defended Robertson despite the red card as he suffered an early knock on the hamstring from that Diop tackle. He said:
“We were hoping it would get better. The moment I noticed he [Robertson] wasn’t himself was when they put the ball behind, and it was quite quickly afterwards when he had the red card. It’s nothing against him.”
Diop’s malicious tackle played a role in Robertson’s eventual failure to time his tackle on Harry Wilson. Liverpool have suffered several poor refereeing calls in the past two Premier League games against Southampton and Newcastle United.
Against Newcastle, Joelington survived any disciplinary action despite making numerous poor and intentional challenges. At the same time, the Reds conceded a penalty against the Saints from a tackle that happened outside the box.
Liverpool are still at the top of the Premier League table with a five-point advantage over second-place Chelsea. Understandably, the Reds are facing similar problems with officiating that they have faced in recent times under the Jurgen Klopp era but these extraneous factors are beyond their control.
The Reds need to go into future games with the idea that they might not receive fair decisions to avoid any psychological stress in an already stressful campaign.
