‘EUROPA LEAGUE DEVALUED WITHOUT VAR’
STEVEN GERRARD last night accused UEFA of devaluing the Europa League by not introducing VAR before the knock-out stages of the competition. The Rangers boss was left hugely disappointed by the officiating during his side’s dramatic 2-1 loss to Young Boys in Switzerland on Thursday night. Gerrard felt his side were denied a clear penalty when Alfredo Morelos had his ankles clipped by Ulisses Garcia with the score tied at 1-1. The former Liverpool and England captain also believes Young Boys would have been down to ten men had video technology been in place to spot a second yellow card offence by Frederik Sorensen. Instead of ending the night on top of Group G after Morelos had given them a first-half lead, Rangers threw it all away when mistakes by Ibrox captain James Tavernier led to a leveller from Roger Assale and then Christian Fassnacht’s dramatic stoppage-time winner for the hosts. Gerrard, while accepting that his team were culpable for those goals, believes that UEFA are selling their secondary competition short by not utilising technology throughout the tournament instead of just in the knockout stage. The Rangers boss said: ‘If you speak to UEFA they make out that this competition is just as important as the Champions League — but it can’t be if there is no VAR (in the group stages). ‘The frustrating thing is that VAR comes into this tournament in the next round. But if VAR was there on Thursday night we would be sitting here talking about a really positive point and being top of the group. That’s the difference. When the referee sees it again he will be disappointed. ‘It (the officiating and the defeat) is still not sitting well with me. ‘If we are outplayed and we are second best then I am usually honest and say that we didn’t deserve anything. ‘But I thought we deserved to take something from the game on Thursday night. ‘The referee has missed a clear penalty for us and the timing of the second goal was tough to take. ‘Our overall performance deserved something — but we have to move on.’