Michael Owen has disagreed with Jurgen Klopp over his claims that Liverpool should replay Tottenham Hotspur following the VAR controversy.
Officiating in the Premier League and the video assistant referee have been at the centre of discussion after Luis Diaz’s first-half effort was incorrectly ruled out for offside last weekend.
Audio from North London was later released which showed the magnitude of the error, after the Professional Game Match Officials Ltd (PGMOL) acknowledged a “significant human error” from the VAR hub in Stockley Park. VAR Darren England and Assistant VAR Dan Cook were stood down from their officiating roles in light of the incident.
Liverpool fell behind moments later to Heung-min Son’s effort before Cody Gakpo equalised. Diogo Jota became the second player to be sent off by Simon Hooper, following Curtis Jones’ in the first 26 minutes, leaving the nine men to weather the hosts storm in a bid to hang on to a point.
The Reds stood firm until stoppage time when Joel Matip inadvertently fired beyond Alisson to hand Liverpool their first Premier League defeat of the season.
Speaking on Wednesday, Klopp claimed that the Reds should have a replay against Ange Postecoglu’s side after the error. However, former Liverpool striker Owen believes that despite the VAR low-point, a replay would set the wrong precedent.
“Well, I think it’s possibly the lowest ebb that VAR have gone through at the moment. It’s probably the worst decision or the worst process that’s occurred since VAR has been introduced,” he began.
“If you’re a positive thinking person and you’re not a Liverpool fan, then I’m sure, you know, you’ll think, well, good, better processes will be made from this. Cricket and Rugby and lots of other sports were struggling for the first year, two years, three years when they introduced their video technology.
“And football is only, you know, in its second season, I think, in this country. So it’s going to get better. It’s not going to go away. The decision was obviously a huge blunder, but anybody that starts crying foul and thinking that there’s something sinister in it only has to listen to the whole transcript. And you can quite clearly see that it’s just a huge error.
“No consolation for Liverpool, of course. I don’t agree that the game needs to be replayed or anything else like that. I just think it’s a huge mistake,” he added speaking exclusively to the ECHO, via AceOdds.
“Ironically, the one thing is that if there was no VAR it would’ve been disallowed anyway and the linesman would’ve made a huge mistake. Because he gave offside when it was on.
“So the decision didn’t change from that point of view, as I said, if VAR wasn’t here, then Liverpool wouldn’t have had that goal. And possibly it would’ve been the same outcome.
“We would’ve just been talking about a rubbish offside decision. So yeah, what more can be said than just an awful, awful blunder.
“In my opinion, there should be no other actions taken. It’s learning, it’s disappointing. It’s hard on Liverpool, but to open a can of worms and say there should be replays and things like that, where would that lead?
“Every time there’s a bad decision in the future, people would be saying, well, let’s replay it. I just can’t see that as being a solution.”
