If we had to pick a game to lose, it would be this one. We can still go on to win the group, and there is no margin for error in the league games. A win would set us up beautifully to just cruise through the group. Now we will have to work for it. It was a decent enough performance, and much better than last season at Napoli. Napoli are a really good team and always have a good plan for playing against us. They might be a better than any team we will face in the Premier League this season, outside of City. The penalty gifted them the result. Robertson shouldn't have stuck is leg out, but that does not change the fact that is not a penalty. Van Dijk never would have made that mistake at the end if we were not down a goal. Napoli had been keeping the ball in the corner and he took an unnecessary risk in order to keep possession and get it out of the back. Adrian was incredible. The save he made on Mertens was unbelievable. It is a weird and uncomfortable feeling seeing Liverpool lose a football match. If we beat Chelsea on Sunday it is still a good week.
Can't tell you how much I hate that attitude. Even the comms were calling for him to go down. That's the game is these past few years. And now VAR. Well I can say I saw football in the golden years.
jesus - from that angle it looks like he hit both of robertson's feet.... I don't think there's any law against throwing yourself after contact.... If Robertson is going to do that he better get the ball. Because some players are going to embellish a dive to help show that they've been fouled or impeded .... and he was impeded.....and falling from being so impeded...
Yeah... just like the whole VVD kicking Lamela thing, when you're flattening a 3D event to 2D, certain angles can and will make some calls look really, really bad. I think you could play this game with a lot of penalties/fouls, actually. This is the real rub... ----v Couldn't agree more. Was it tricky/sneaky by attacker, did he know what he was doing? Of course, there's no question. But it is what it is... hang that leg out there, make contact with no ball, it's gonna get the whistle.
Oof... not me, man. Lallana is past it. Happy for him to play against MK Dons in that new role he's been playing though. Milner wasn't very good today but he was pulled at the right time and LFC really did enough to be leading this match deep into the 2nd half. Bad challenge and semi-poor/wasteful attackers cost us a result today.
I’m quoting my own post, because I realized that we shouldn’t need to say nonsense like this anymore. He should be able to stick his leg out as long as he doesn’t foul him. You could see why the ref gives it, but we supposedly have a system that is meant to correct the referee’s mistake. This is two games in a row where ridiculous, obvious penalty decisions have gone against Liverpool. VAR does nothing, and nobody can understand what the hell is going on. You never get an explanation and nobody is held accountable.
I think you may find pushback about how obvious these calls are. Especially outside Liverpool supporter's clubs. What was the other obvious penalty? Against Newcastle?
Tough loss, never a penalty but not a disaster. Napoli were well organized and played well. Let's win the next match.
IMHO it was a 50:50 type call. So whatever the ref decided, VAR was not going to overrule. Under these circumstances, not a failure of VAR.
I think he was about as lucky to get away with that tug on Matip as Robertson would have been to get away with his hanging leg. Similar plays could and have gone both ways in the past, which is part of the issue and again is just a problem with things that aren't 100% obvious nailed on penalties. I presume part of the problem with VAR is that they are walking a line of not forcing a ref to do anything. Is there clear, obvious evidence -- in either example -- that the wrong call was made? While lots and lots of Liverpool fans would say yes, I personally am not so sure that's true.
Even when you see it from this angle? 1174073121571311624 is not a valid tweet id Was there even enough time to view it from all angles before the ref let the penalty be taken?
But maybe not from other angles? Have seen plenty of incidents in the past where different angles appear to show different things. So I assume on balance the VAR officials could not determine there had been a clear and obvious error?
Without a shadow of a doubt it was a soft penalty. But I've seen them given. So logically that can't be a clear and obvious error?
You’ve seen them giving because it’s very easy for the referee to be fooled in real time. Before seeing the replay I thought it was a penalty as well. I thought the point of VAR was to fix these. From watching the replay I thought it was clear and obvious that Robertson did not foul him. What about Matip being tackled in the box against Newcastle? If that’s not clear and obvious, nothing will ever reach that standard.
In the Premier League, I know that the decision to overturn a call is made by the video official. Hence, why they only overturn clear and obvious errors. Is it not done differently in the Champions League? Doesn’t the official go over to the monitor and have a look himself? If so, the ref should have had a look at the replay to confirm what he thought he saw. The maddening thing is that nobody knows what’s going on and the penalty is taken and you are left wondering if it was properly reviewed and what camera angles they saw.
Now we know that Shaqiri’s role is to come on when we are chasing a goal late in the game. That explains why we have hardly seen him. When are we ever even in that situation anymore?
Never. Felt like we played much better than we did a year ago there. The ref was crazy inconsistent but maybe that's just my Liverpool bias (according to hobo). Felt like we'd eventually get the winner and very disappointed we didn't. Oh well, let's smack Chelsea around to make up for it.
I think the ref largely let them play, was a fairly physical game. Napoli might have gotten more calls overall, that doesn't feel wrong to me. In the 2nd half especially felt like LFC were getting called for a lot... but a lot of them felt like fouls to me. And Salah probably would have had a pen if he went over in the 1st half, as many have noted.
I'll moan about the officiating--we have seen worse in the Premier League. The point is that if you don’t score and then make the kinds of mistakes we made throughout the game, you can’t complain when you lose. Napoli was well organised and made it quite difficult for Liverpool once we got into the danger areas. I still thought we gifted them the chances but that's what happens when you play a good team which Napoli is. It was already clear in the first ten minutes that we needed to some things differently if we were to get a result but we lacked that invention to vary things when the front three are off their game. Adrian. though, was outstanding and seems to have improved a notch since coming to Liverpool. I hope the team learns from defeat this time because, despite the improved performances overall from last season, we still committed the basic errors which cost us the match. Next.