Liverpool have complained to Professional Game Match Officials (PGMO) over the decision to disallow Virgil van Dijk’s header at Manchester City on Sunday amid concern that the relevant criteria were not met.
Van Dijk’s effort was ruled out in the 38th minute, when City were leading 1-0, and the referee Chris Kavanagh’s on-field decision was backed by the video assistant referee, Michael Oliver. The VAR agreed that the Liverpool defender Andy Robertson was “in an offside position and deemed to be making an obvious action directly in front of the goalkeeper” when ducking out the way of Van Dijk’s header as it sailed past Gianluigi Donnarumma.
Liverpool dispute that interpretation and do not believe the City goalkeeper’s line of vision was affected by Robertson. The club are bewildered that VAR did not allow the goal to stand and have contacted Howard Webb, the head of the refereeing body, to challenge the decision. Liverpool do not believe the wording of Law 11 applies to what Robertson did.
Law 11 states that a player in an offside position at the moment the ball is played is only penalised on becoming involved in active play by: “Interfering with play by playing or touching a ball passed or touched by a teammate, or interfering with an opponent by: preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision, or challenging an opponent for the ball or clearly attempting to play a ball which is close when this action impacts on an opponent or making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball.”
Arne Slot refused to blame the controversy for his team’s 3-0 defeat in the 1,000th game of Pep Guardiola’s managerial career, but insisted that a clear and obvious error had been made by Kavanagh. The Liverpool head coach said: “He [Robertson] didn’t interfere at all with what the goalkeeper could do.Immediately after the game someone showed me the goal that the same referee allowed for City against Wolves last season [when Bernardo Silva was in an offside position close to the goalkeeper as John Stones scored with a header].
Julian Nagelsmann, the Germany head coach, has defended Florian Wirtz after criticism of his slow start to life at Liverpool, pinning some of the blame on the team's poor form and finishing.
Wirtz, a £100m summer signing from Bayer Leverkusen, is yet to register a goal or assist in the Premier League – though he has created 16 chances – while Arne Slot's side have struggled to sustain their title defence. The attacking midfielder started as Liverpool slumped to a 3-0 defeat at Manchester City on Sunday, a result which left them eighth in the table.
Nagelsmann has called for patience with the Germany international, however. "To be honest, the overall situation doesn't make it easy for Flo," he said. "The whole club isn't as stable this year as it was last year. It's much harder to slip into the team now.
"If you look at the game against City, they were actually the worse team over the 90 minutes. So it's also difficult for Flo to make a big impact. Ultimately, the overall situation is such that he just needs a little more time, which is normal. You see that with other players who move to the Premier League too."
Nagelsmann added: "We all know what he's capable of and it's perfectly normal for a player of his age to go through a bit of a dip in form. We can't expect him to perform at the same level for three years straight.
"Instead, we all need to support him a little bit so that he can clear his head here, and then maybe Liverpool could also help him out by scoring some of the chances he creates. That would be one idea, because ... they somehow don't like to shoot the ball in, that's also part of the truth."
Wirtz is part of Nagelsmann's squad for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Luxembourg and Slovakia. Victories in both matches will secure Germany's place at the 2026 World Cup finals. Will Magee
“It took the linesman 13 seconds to raise his flag to say it was offside. So there was clearly communication, but as I said that could have influenced the game in a positive way for us. I would like to emphasise the fact that being 2-0 down at half-time was a fair reflection of how the game went.”
