REF JUSTICE Klopp rocked by two sendings FOR REDS
JOEL MATIP’S stoppage-time own-goal handed Tottenham a dramatic victory against Liverpool.
But unfortunately what was a rip-roaring game was arguably decided by some dreadful officiating.
First, VAR Darren England urged referee Simon Hooper to go to his monitor for another look at Curtis Jones’ tackle on Yves Bissouma.
Hooper had shown Jones a harsh yellow card given he had made decent contact with the ball and only caught Bissouma through momentum rather than malice shortly before the halfhour. But he then defied logic by upgrading the booking to a red card.
Hooper reduced Liverpool to nine men in the 69th minute when half-time substitute Diogo Jota caught Destiny Udogie with a tackle that, yes, was a bit silly after he had already been booked but was still a soft yellow card nonetheless.
And he was not done either because later in the game he failed to book Bissouma for waving an imaginary yellow card in Andy Robertson’s direction, and soon after the Spurs midfielder really got away with it when he was booked.
No wonder boss Ange Postecoglou hooked him immediately and while Spurs will have taken this win, however it came to them, Liverpool can rightly feel aggrieved.
We will never know what the score would have been if Jurgen Klopp’s men had not played the last 70-odd minutes with 10 and then nine men.
But given they held on until the sixth minute of stoppage time, their fans will think it might have been an altogether different story.
This was a belting game and the early exchanges justified the anticipation.
Richarlison fizzed a low cross dangerously across the face of goal that somehow evaded everyone in the box.
At the other end, Cody Gakpo and Robertson forced a fine double save from Guglielmo Vicario, the second a belter.
Liverpool’s woes deepened before the break after Jones’ dismissal when James Maddison released the impressive Richarlison and his centre put the ball on a plate for Heung-min Son to fire home the opener.
Liverpool heads could so easily
have dropped but, credit to them, they were level again before the break.
Dominik Szoboszlai’s sweet pass was headed back by Virgil van Dijk, Matip missed it and Gakpo fired the ball home, injuring himself in the process.
Alisson then made two brilliant saves soon after the restart.
The first from Maddison defied gravity, the second from a Son volley was almost as good.
Son had a goal disallowed for offside, just as Luis Diaz narrowly had earlier. Hooper then sent off Jota and Matip scored an own goal in injury time to put the seal on a proper afternoon’s theatre.