Thanks to Middlesbrough’s progress in the competition, Liverpool was once again spared VAR for its League Cup semi-final against Fulham. At Anfield, I must admit it was nice to be able to cheer the goals without that nagging fear.
On the whole, despite the absence of ‘help’ from Stockley Park, the game managed to avoid any major officiating controversy. Referee David Coote gave Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk a ludicrous yellow card, but VAR wouldn’t have been able to help with that anyway.
All in all, the game flowed at a much better pace. But that was despite the best efforts of Fulham goalkeeper Bernd Leno.
Even at 0-0, the former Arsenal man was taking his sweet time over goal kicks, and indeed with the ball in his hands — an offense only punishable if your name is Simon Mignolet, as Liverpool fans all know. Once Fulham took the lead, this became even more pronounced.
It’s understandable, of course. Liverpool was the favorite, and after two encounters this season it’s become abundantly clear that if Fulham concedes once, it is prone to collapse, especially under the weight of the Anfield roar (not always at its best last night by any means, but certainly powerful in moments).
But the job of the officials is to police this properly. There was supposed to be a real crackdown this season, along with dissent, but that long since seems to have gone out of the window — with Liverpool appearing to have borne a disproportionate amount of the punishment.
The really bizarre thing from this match is that Coote was not completely turning a blind eye to Leno’s antics. At the second or third time of asking, a shrill blast of his whistle and a gesture of the hands urged the Fulham stopper to get on with the restart. He delayed still further, and the referee signaled again.
Surely this was to produce a yellow card? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a referee warn a goalkeeper about time-wasting twice on the same kick and not issue a booking. Yet that’s what Coote saw fit to do.
To make matters worse, he would once again warn Leno a little later on, this time tapping his watch officiously too for good measure, indicating that the time would be added on. But still there was no yellow card.
The icing on the cake was when the fourth official’s board went up at the end of the first half: three minutes. Again, this was supposed to be part of the clampdown for the 2023/24 campaign, but this would have seemed on the low side even last season.
Fulham’s goal celebrations should have been 30 seconds, by the general rule of thumb. Then there were Leno’s antics, supposedly noted by Coote. And the physios were also waved on — my cue to dash to the Sir Kenny Dalglish Stand toilets. I got back without missing a kick.
Leno sped things up a little in the second half, with an increasingly angry Kop on his back. But what really got Fulham to get a move on was Liverpool’s quickfire double — almost a carbon copy of the league meeting, where one goal came and Anfield almost sucked in another.
It was at that point that you simply had to admire the cheek of the away fans. As Caoimhín Kelleher took his time over a kick, there were rumbles of discontent from behind his goal, prompting an ironic jeer from Anfield.
With Liverpool taking a one-goal advantage to London, hopefully Fulham won’t be so intent on taking the sting out when the teams meet at Craven Cottage. Chaos has suited Jürgen Klopp’s side against a generally well-drilled Marco Silva team, so he will be very relieved to have overcome Leno’s antics and some strange refereeing to earn an important home win.
