Jack Grealish and David Moyes criticised the referee, Darren England, as Everton were left frustrated by the amount of stoppage time during their 2-1 loss at Liverpool.
Ryan Gravenberch and Hugo Ekitiké set Liverpool on their way to victory, but Idrissa Gueye pulled one back for Everton, who were disappointed not to level after putting the champions under plenty of pressure late on.
Grealish, who was the victim of repeated fouls, was booked by England after full time for taking his complaints to the referee. “We couldn’t get the last goal and it was frustrating in the second half,” he told TNT Sports.
“They were trying to slow the game down at times. I’ve never seen a player in my whole life get booked for taking a quick free-kick. I don’t know where that rule has come in. Even the stoppage time, three minutes and one minute – I’ve never seen that in the Premier League in the last two or three years.
“There were frustrations with the referee. Sometimes you want to let the game go, I completely get that, but you can’t not give us something and then two seconds later one of their defenders goes down after getting touched in the back and he gives it.
“You come to these stadiums and the crowd are on them, I feel that they feel they have to give it. Kiernan [Dewsbury-Hall] is on four yellows now and he got one for taking a quick free-kick. We want to get the game going, we’re losing.”
Everton had the better of the second half after a much-improved performance compared with their offering before the break and caused Liverpool problems. “Three minutes was very strange,” Moyes said of the time added at the end. “Every quick free-kick had to be stopped and brought back for the whistle and then we get a booking for it. I find it quite unbelievable.”
Arne Slot praised Liverpool’s resilience after they held on to secure a fifth straight Premier League win. On three occasions this season, Liverpool have thrown away two-goal leads before coming back to win late on, but on Saturday there was no requirement for a dramatic ending.
“We needed mentality in a different fashion to a few times before,” he said. “We always knew how difficult a game this would be, let alone if you have proper preparation time, but if you played your third game in less than seven days against your rivals, then you know that the second half could be very tough. We ran a bit out of energy, but we didn’t run out of mentality.”
