Andoni Iraola was left frustrated after Liverpool\u2019s 3-0 Premier League defeat to Manchester City, focusing his anger on Ryan Gravenberch\u2019s red card and what he felt were soft decisions from referee Chris Kavanagh.<\/p>\n
Liverpool were already under pressure when they conceded three times in a 13-minute spell after going down to a numerical disadvantage, and Iraola argued that Gravenberch\u2019s first yellow was far too harsh. He also suggested the standard applied in the match should be carried through the rest of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the first foul of Ryan is never a yellow card, never,\u201d said the Spaniard. \u201cThese kinds of games, just a stomp on the big toe, or something minor. He doesn\u2019t even call the foul straight away. He lets bit go, I think Elliot Anderson does a couple of steps. He decides to go down. I don\u2019t know why after he shows the yellow card, because it\u2019s not a situation where it leaves advantage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had nine players behind the ball. It\u2019s like they had a lot of, you know, it was in the middle of the pitch, no danger there. And then you put, as a referee, yourself in trouble, and also you put us in trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n
His irritation was not confined to that incident. He added: \u201cAlso, at the beginning of the game, yellow card of Ronald [Ara\u00fajo], I know he complains, he does this. But in these kinds of games, if you are going to start after a handball of [Marc] Gu\u00e9hi, the punishment is for Ronald complaining.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou put it straight away at the beginning of the game, the right back with a yellow card. I think you are in the textbooks, yes, perfect. He complains, you can show a yellow card, but then I will be very careful all the season. Every time someone complains, it has to be a yellow card.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gravenberch\u2019s second booking, for pulling down Doku in the 62nd minute, was described as a clear yellow. But the first caution remained contentious, with the Dutchman booked in the 47th minute for contact that appeared minimal after he tried to pull out of the challenge. Speaking with Sky Sports, former Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher also disagreed with Kavanagh\u2019s first booking decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iraola hit out at Gravenberch\u2019s first yellow after Liverpool\u2019s defeat to Manchester City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21733,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,238,2024],"tags":[1836,180],"class_list":["post-21734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-manchester-city","category-refereeing","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}