Liverpool manager Arne Slot and captain Virgil van Dijk both reacted with frustration after a disallowed header late in Sunday\u2019s defeat to Manchester City. A quick VAR check did not overturn the on-field decision, which was later confirmed because Andy Robertson was judged to be “directly in front” of Gianluigi Donnarumma. Replays showed Robertson, while in an offside position, to the left of the goalkeeper\u2019s line of sight.<\/p>\n
Slot made his feelings clear in the post-match press conference. “It is difficult to give my view,” Slot reflected. “It is obvious and clear that the wrong decision has been made, at least in my opinion.<\/p>\n
“He [Robertson] didn\u2019t interfere at all with what the goalkeeper could do. Immediately after the game, someone showed me the goal that the same referee allowed\u2014City against Wolves last season.<\/p>\n
“So it took the linesman 13 seconds to raise his flag to say it was offside. So there was clearly communication, but as I said, that could have influenced the game in a positive way for us.” <\/p>\n
Liverpool missed the momentum the goal would have offered and went on to lose 3\u20130 to Pep Guardiola\u2019s side. Van Dijk downplayed the prospect of a prolonged media debate, focusing instead on the result. “In football the officials are deciding the key decisions and we have to deal with it on the pitch,” Van Dijk said. “There is no point discussing this from my point of view. The reality is that we lost 3\u20130 and that is a big blow.<\/p>\n
“It doesn\u2019t matter what I say [about the goal] because anything I say will be in the media and the whole international break will be about my comment on the decision. I just focus on the fact we lost. You guys can debate if it should have stood.” <\/p>\n
The disallowed goal arrived at the end of a week in which Van Dijk had also been involved in a public exchange with Wayne Rooney, which concluded with Rooney apologising for his earlier remarks. Rooney later expressed sympathy for Liverpool and agreed with Slot, saying: “I don\u2019t think [Robertson] has affected [Donnarumma] at all, when you look at it.<\/p>\n
“Robertson is in an offside position but Van Dijk, good movement, really good header and Donnarumma can see the ball, we know he can see the ball the whole way and Robertson is to the side of him.<\/p>\n
“Donnarumma is outstretched, he has a full dive, there\u2019s no affect from Robertson on that goal for me.<\/p>\n
“Donnarumma puts all his weight on his right foot which makes it hard for him to get back across the goal but he dives as soon as Van Dijk heads the ball and he\u2019s on his way, he\u2019s diving and it\u2019s a really good header, the goal should\u2019ve stood to me.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slot called the disallowed Van Dijk goal ‘a clear wrong decision’ after Liverpool’s 3\u20130 loss replays<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4391,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,238],"tags":[220,299,1215],"class_list":["post-4392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-manchester-city","tag-andy-robertson","tag-arne-slot","tag-controversy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4392","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=4392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}