Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel has questioned the speed at which referee Anthony Taylor chose to send off Reece James at Liverpool.
James was given a straight red card for deliberate handball on the goalline in first-half injury time as he attempted to keep out Sadio Mane’s close-range effort.
Mohamed Salah converted the spot kick to earn the Reds a 1-1 draw at Anfield after they had fallen behind to a Kai Havertz header.
And while Tuchel could understand the decision of Taylor, he was concerned by how quickly it was reached.
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“Double punishment is always super hard and a bit of a spoiler for the game,” said the Chelsea boss. “But it is the rule.
“I don’t like these early red cards in general. It spoils the game. Nobody wants to see that for 45 minutes, they want to see a high-level game.
“Even when watching on TV I don’t like it. But I don’t have a solution for it or a better idea right now.
“The decision itself, I can understand it. I’m not saying it’s a wrong decision but I didn’t like the way the referee checked it, he checked only the image and the image showed the clear contact and then it was a clear contact.
“We saw on the bench on our iPads the whole movement, and we saw it was a deflection, short distance, comes off the hip to his arm, his arm is not in a super unnatural position.
“I’ve heard referees say it’s not a punishable action. I would have wished for a longer consideration, although maybe the referee could have taken the same decision anyway.
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“We have to live with it and I can live with it that some decisions are the responsibility of the referee in the moment.”
Chelsea lost N’Golo Kante to injury at half-time but their 10 men were able to repel Liverpool and extend their impressive Anfield record to just two defeats in their last 12 visits.
And Tuchel was delighted with the defensive resolve of his players having had just 33% possession in the second half.
He said: “Can there be any harder challenges than going one man down and taking N’Golo Kante off at the same time at half-time at Anfield, and having Liverpool play towards the Kop?
“Pretty tough one, but we did excellent and are super happy with how we did. We feel like we deserved the point.”
