Liverpool boss Arne Slot was booked on the touchline during the Carabao Cup defeat to Tottenham Hotspur and took aim at the VAR trial during the game.
Slot suffered his second defeat as Liverpool manager since replacing Jurgen Klopp thanks to Lucas Bergvall’s controversial second half goal.
The youngster was booked prior to scoring and avoided a second caution for a late tackle on Kostas Tsimikas as referee Stuart Attwell had played advantage which left the Liverpool bench infuriated.
Also during the game, Attwell was put in the spotlight to explain the decision to disallow Dominic Solanke’s goal for offside, the first of its kind in England as part of a trial during the Carabao Cup semi-final matches aiming to provide more clarity over VAR decisions for supporters in the stadium.
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Fans were in agreement on the in-stadium announcements, claiming they were ‘pointless’ as everyone knew why the goal was disallowed.
Slot echoed those sentiments during his post-match press conference and suggested Attwell should have instead explained his decision not to send off Bergvall.
“You can’t judge something on one game, but if it’s offside I don’t think you have to explain it,” Slot said.
“It would be more interesting for everyone if he would have explained why he didn’t give a second yellow card than explaining why he cancelled a goal everyone could see on the screen.
“But I know that’s not the rule. The VAR wasn’t involved in the second yellow.”
Slot also claimed it was the wrong decision to not issue Bergvall his marching orders just minutes before scoring the winning goal which was compounded by the fact the player hurt in the challenge, Tsimikas, was off the field receiving treatment in the build up to the goal.
Slot said when asked whether Bergvall should have been given a second yellow: “Yes, I don’t think there’s any debate about that. They say he (the referee) didn’t (want to) stop the counter-attack and I say every manager would prefer when a tackle being made 40 yards from our goalkeeper, that the player is given a second yellow card rather than to continue the counter-attack with a player less to play that counter-attack with.
“The next discussion is was it reckless enough to give advantage and come back and say the tackle was still too reckless and then give a yellow.
“When he (the referee) didn’t give the second yellow nobody thought it would have such a big impact 30 seconds later.
“I haven’t asked him, but I’m 99.9% sure I wasn’t the only one who felt ‘wow, not the best’. I’m 99.9% sure when Bergvall scored the referee thought ‘oh, is this really happening?’ because he couldn’t change it anymore. I think for him it was also far from ideal.
“In the offside decision he had to tell everyone what the decision was and unfortunately he didn’t have to do that with this decision.”
Topics: Liverpool, Carabao Cup, VAR, Jurgen Klopp, Tottenham Hotspur, Arne Slot
Marcus Banks