Pascal Gross avoided a red card against Liverpool because VAR did not believe he denied a goalscoring opportunity when giving away a penalty.
The Brighton star brought down Dominik Szoboszlai inside the area on the stroke of half-time to gift the Reds a spot-kick. Mohamed Salah duly stepped up to fire it in, handing Jurgen Klopp’s side the lead over the Seagulls, having fallen behind midway through the first half.
But some of a Reds persuasion were left feeling that Gross and Brighton should have faced a harsher punishment. There were calls for referee Anthony Taylor to send off the German midfielder, having failed to even book him despite a VAR check on the decision.
But the PGMOL’s own rules give a hint as to why VAR did not intervene to convince Taylor to send off Gross. The guidance given on what constitutes a denial of a goalscoring opportunity clears matters up.
The rules state: “Where a player commits an offence against an opponent within their own penalty area which denies an opponent an obvious goal-scoring opportunity and the referee awards a penalty kick, the offender is cautioned if the offence was an attempt to play the ball or a challenge for the ball; in all other circumstances (e.g. holding, pulling, pushing, no possibility to play the ball etc.), the offending player must be sent off.”
It would appear that VAR Craig Pawson did not believe that the incident was the level of a goalscoring opportunity. It is thought that is because Szoboszlai was not moving toward goal and he would have to gain possession again.
The incident follows on from last week’s controversy that saw the PGMOL apologise to Liverpool for “significant human error” in their defeat to Spurs. A mix-up between referee Simon Hooper and VAR Darren England saw a Luis Diaz goal wrongly ruled out for offside.
Klopp was left fuming after that farce, even going so far as to demand a replay. But he was calmer on the south coast, insisting that he did not even realise that Gross could have been shown a red card.
“I didn’t realise it, to be honest. I saw it was a penalty and didn’t think about red, but I heard now it is about goalscoring opportunity. If it is a goalscoring opportunity, we can ask the question here: what do you think, was it a goalscoring opportunity?” Klopp said.
“Hands up. I didn’t see it back… we have a few hands up, by the way! But what can I say about that? I am over it, I am too old for these kind of things. We will not change it anymore. One-nil, served on a plate, but similar situation [for us].
“We forced them to make similar mistakes around our goals. Two-one up is a good result for half-time here because it is a really good team and it is difficult to defend them all the time. We wanted to do high pressing, it was the right thing to do.
“But in the same moment it caused the issue that they play out from time to time, we don’t win the ball and then the pitch is really big and [we are] chasing back. They do that well. I think it is clear in the second half we should have scored for 3-1.”
