Liverpool are preparing to appeal the red card given to Curtis Jones during their controversial 2-1 defeat at Tottenham on Saturday.
The midfielder was sent off for fouling Yves Bissouma in the 26th minute after a VAR intervention.
Referee Simon Hooper had initially shown Jones a yellow card but changed his decision after being advised to go to the pitchside monitor.
Sky Sports News has been told Liverpool feel the tackle did not meet the threshold for excessive force as the 22-year-old made enough contact with the ball and was trying to control it by rolling over it, while there was no basis or intention for serious foul play.
After the defeat in north London, Jurgen Klopp said: “He had full power on the ball, rolls over the ball and then he hits the decisive part of the leg.
“The game is in real time but we judge it in slow motion.”
Jones faces a three-game ban if the red card is not overturned and would sit out Liverpool’s Premier League fixtures against Brighton, Everton and Nottingham Forest.
Liverpool have made a formal request to PGMOL for the audio between the match officials from the defeat at Tottenham after Luis Diaz’s opener was wrongly disallowed.
Diaz’s goal was incorrectly ruled out for offside after a mistake by Darren England, the VAR, described by PGMOL as a “significant human error”.
Diaz was flagged offside by the assistant referee after putting the ball into the Spurs net despite being onside. However, England and the VAR team mistakenly thought the Liverpool winger’s goal had been allowed, so told the referee to uphold his decision.
England and Dan Cook, the assistant VAR, were taken off duty from their next scheduled games.
Liverpool vowed on Sunday to “explore the range of options available” to them to reach a resolution and have now approached PGMOL for the raw audio files of the conversations between England and his on-field colleagues.
The statement from Liverpool on Sunday read: “Liverpool Football Club acknowledges PGMOL’s admission of their failures last night. It is clear that the correct application of the laws of the game did not occur, resulting in sporting integrity being undermined.
“We fully accept the pressures that match officials work under but these pressures are supposed to be alleviated, not exacerbated, by the existence and implementation of VAR.
“It is therefore unsatisfactory that sufficient time was not afforded to allow the correct decision to be made and that there was no subsequent intervention.
“That such failings have already been categorised as ‘significant human error’ is also unacceptable. Any and all outcomes should be established only by the review and with full transparency.
“This is vital for the reliability of future decision making as it applies to all clubs, with learnings being used to make improvements to processes in order to ensure this kind of situation cannot occur again.
“In the meantime, we will explore the range of options available, given the clear need for escalation and resolution.”
