Liverpool are unhappy with Virgil van Dijk’s canceled goal against Man City and have “expressed serious concerns” to PGMOL, according to reports.
Liverpool were overwhelmed by Man City at the Etihad on Sunday afternoon, with goals from Erling Haaland, Nico Gonzalez and Jeremy Doku helping the home side win 3-0.
Liverpool were slightly better in the second half before Doc put the game away with a great long-range attack, but the away team had no performance before the break.
The only good moment for Liverpool before the interval was when Van Dijk appeared to cancel out Haaland’s opener by heading the ball into goal from a corner kick.
However, this goal was ruled out by VAR as Andy Robertson was adjudged to have influenced the play from an offside position, but he was not in Gianluigi Donnarumma’s line of sight when the centre-back touched the ball.
Read: 16 takeaways from Man City 3-0 Liverpool: Champions drop to eighth and out of title contention
After the match, Liverpool manager Arne Slott slammed the “wrong decision”.
“I think it’s clear and obvious that the wrong decision was made, at least in my opinion, because he (Robertson) didn’t interfere in any way with the goalkeeper’s actions,” Slott said.
“Right after the game, someone showed me the goal the same referee had conceded to City against Wolves last season (John Stones’ last-minute winner), and it took 13 seconds for the linesman to raise the flag for offside. So there was clearly some communication.”
“We were so bad in the first half that it might have had a positive impact on the game.
“We would have been lucky if we were down 1-0 at half-time, much less 1-1 or 2-1.
“So it was an influential decision, but you can’t predict what the second half is going to be, so I can’t say we would have gotten the result here then.”
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Now, a report from The Athletic’s James Pearce reveals that the Reds have “raised serious concerns” with PGMOL after “making contact with referee-in-chief Howard Webb.”
It is noteworthy that PGMOL’s “reasons” for disallowing Van Dijk’s goal “do not add up.”
The report explains:
“Liverpool told Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) that it was unacceptable that the decision had been taken to disallow a goal scored when the score was 1-0 in the first half for subjective reasons.”
“The club believes that the wording of the law is clear and that the goal should have been allowed as the elements of the criteria required to invalidate it were not met.”
