Newcastle manager Eddie Howe was left annoyed at what he perceived as key decisions from referee Anthony Taylor that went against his side as the Magpies lost 4-2 at Anfield against Liverpool. Jürgen Klopp’s men were worthy winners and generated a record-breaking 7.2 expected goals in the game, with Mohamed Salah scoring twice and missing a penalty.
Curtis Jones and Cody Gakpo were also on the scoresheet but Howe claimed to be ‘confused’ about the penalty that Salah did find the back of the net with. The Newcastle boss felt there was not enough in the challenge for Diogo Jota to go down when Martin Dúbravka clipped his heel, though the Portuguese would have tapped into an empty net had he not been tripped.
“Liverpool played very well and it was a tough game for us. We knew it would be,” Howe told the BBC post-match. “But we had our moments and there was some really good passages of play from us.
“We looked dangerous and I’m still very confused over the penalties that we conceded today. The second one (the foul on Jota) especially looked not like a penalty and we had one just before that which was probably the turning point of the game.
“The most important thing from my perspective is that we’re fighting. [Newcastle’s current poor run of results] is a difficult situation but we’re missing a lot of players and we’ve had a really tough run of fixtures. But we’re battling and the honesty of the group is still there.”
Referee Taylor was booed off by the home fans despite Liverpool winning comfortably. He failed to book Joelinton for a blatant foul as the Brazilian attempted to stop a counter-attack and lost control of the match at times, particularly at the end of the first half.
There were some poor tackles flying in during both halves. Klopp confirmed that Liverpool’s Hungarian midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai went off injured but the 23-year-old had a hamstring injury that forced him to be substituted rather than an impact.
