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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Sport
Chris Doyle

Mohamed Salah's outburst and Arturo Vidal's bizarre interaction with referee explained

Mohamed Salah had one of those nights for Liverpool where nothing came off for him.

The Reds progressed to the Champions League quarter-finals despite a 1-0 defeat by Inter Milan at Anfield.

Lautaro Martinez scored a stunning strike to give the Italians hope of a comeback, but that vanished moments later when Alexis Sanchez was controversially sent off, receiving a second yellow for a late challenge on Fabinho.

Liverpool should have killed the game off with several chances when Inter went down to 10 men. The majority of them fell to Salah who was uncharacteristically off the boil.

Twice the Egyptian struck the post and he really should have scored on both occasions.

Mo Salah had a tough night at the office for Liverpool (Getty)

Should Alexis Sanchez have been sent off against Liverpool? Comment below

Salah missed what was pretty much an open goal in the 51st minute before hitting the woodwork once again with a volley from Sadio Mane's cross when he just had the keeper to beat.

Salah is greedy in the sense that he has an obsession with scoring as many goals as possible and often shows his frustration when he is substituted no matter what the scoreline is or how many goals he has to his name.

And you could sense his squandered chances against Inter were starting to bother him.

At one point, he was spotted flailing his arms and bouncing on the turf in sheer frustration when Andy Robertson failed to find him unmarked in the area as a defender blocked the left-back's cross, which went out for a corner.

Arturo Vidal was one player on the night who epitomised Inter's mentality of leaving everything out on the field as the Chilean put his body on the line on several occasions.

The midfielder, who is almost 35, rolled back the years at Anfield and was one of the main reasons Liverpool didn't find the net.

Arturo Vidal hugged referee Antonio Miguel Mateu after he was booked (Reuters)

Luis Diaz had an open goal to aim at in stoppage time and, even though the tie was virtually over, the former Barcelona man came out of nowhere to deflect the effort over the bar.

That was vintage Vidal, but so was his antics when he was awarded a yellow card for a foul on Curtis Jones.

Vidal tried his best to escape going into the referee's book by hugging Antonio Mateu Lahoz, who he'd have known from his time at Camp Nou.

It was all in vain but you would expect nothing less from the wily veteran, who is one of the biggest characters in the game.

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