Alan Shearer blasted the ‘stupid’ call to award Liverpool and Diogo Jota a penalty during their 3-1 win over Crystal Palace on Sunday, as he told Premier League Productions (23/01/22 at 5:25 pm).
The Premier League’s all-time leading goalscorer labelled VAR’s call to award the spot-kick as ‘ridiculous, wrong, pathetic and stupid’.
After a dominant first-half display from Liverpool, where they raced into a 2-0 lead, they were on the back foot for most of the second half.
With less than ten minutes left on the clock, Patrick Vieira’s side were searching for that equaliser, before Vicente Guaita was seemingly punished for fouling Jota.
The replays showed Jota running into the Crystal Palace goalkeeper, rather than him being fouled, but either way, VAR urged referee, Kevin Friend, to look at his monitor and then overturn his call.
With Mo Salah away on Africa Cup of Nations duty, Fabinho stepped up for the Reds and converted his spot-kick to well and truly kill off the game.
To say it kindly, Shearer wasn’t too pleased by the call involving Jota and he made his feelings clear.
“When it was live, I thought ‘goal kick or he has miskicked it’,” said Shearer. “For the life of me, Kevin Friend and Craig Pawson.
“How on earth, they both get to this ridiculous, wrong, pathetic and stupid decision. Are there any other words you can give me? Can you tell I am angry?
“The standard of our refereeing this year has been awful. There are so many poor decisions. VAR is actually making our referee’s worse. They are under so much pressure.
“Never ever. Not a penalty in a million years. How two so-called experienced referees can get to the decision that they somehow think that is a penalty is baffling to me.”
Even if Liverpool still would have walked away from Selhurst Park with all three points, it still prevented the home team with the chance to go for that equaliser in the dying minutes.
Palace were the better side during the second 45 and they would have been kicking themselves they didn’t punish their sloppy opponents in the first half.
Either way, in Salah and Sadio Mane’s absence, the Reds have secured another win and now they will await their return after the winter break.
Both Senegal and Egypt are still in the AFCON competition and they are heading straight to that final, as things stand.
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