Pep Guardiola has delivered his opinion on the latest VAR controversy and Jurgen Klopp’s claim that Liverpool’s recent trip to Tottenham should have been replayed
Pep Guardiola has said Jurgen Klopp must “accept” VAR’s mistake not to allow Luis Diaz’s first-half strike against Tottenham after the Liverpool boss called for a replay.
Diaz thought he had given the Reds the lead in north London, only for the offside flag to be raised. Following a 40-second review, VAR did not overrule the on-field decision, even though replays showed that Diaz was in fact onside when the ball was played through by Mohamed Salah.
PGMOL admitted that VAR had made a “significant human error” for not giving the goal and the body stated they would apologise to Liverpool. Since, PGMOL have released the audio footage from the VAR room as Darren England – who was at the heart of the scandal – reacted with dejected swearing after realising his blunder.
Klopp felt a replay would have been the only logical scenario as he told reporters: “As a football person I think the only outcome should be a replay, that is how it is.” But following the Reds’ 2-0 win over Union SG in the Europa League on Thursday, Klopp retracted on his comments and implied that they had been taken out of context.
“I knew it would be difficult when yesterday I spoke about the other game,” he said. “I knew. And you proved to me, again, everybody, just how the world is. I think everybody who was here heard what I said, but everybody understood obviously something else! But it’s okay!”
Manchester City boss Guardiola has now weighed in on the debate and claimed Klopp and Liverpool should accept it was a mistake and move on. “I said before the game in the Champions League, so it’s done. It was a mistake, accept it,” he told reporters.
“It’s always difficult, humans can make mistakes but the machines have to do it – the VAR is there to reduce that (mistake). All the humans make the mistakes, we do. At the end, the machines had been (introduced) for human beings so it’s a mistake, hopefully it’s finished here, getting better and improve (from) that.
“The Premier League or people from VAR will improve at that to avoid and the reason it’s there is for a fair game. The VAR was implemented to make our game more right, hopefully will be better in the future.”
Ange Postecoglou, who was on the end other end of Liverpool’s disallowed strike, was asked about whether he would have allowed the Reds to score had the officials given him the chance. He said: “I just don’t see that. If we want managers to be the arbiters of these kind of things… we’ve got pretty hefty responsibilities at our football clubs but we’re not the custodians.
“I wouldn’t make a decision that could potentially send a club down on the back of what my beliefs are. In that moment, if somebody could tell me that they could explain everything that went on within the prism of 30 seconds… I have to make a decision and it wasn’t going to happen.
“It’s different if it’s something clear. It was a bad error through a lack of communication but it wasn’t something that was easily explainable. If it was easily explainable, I would assume there would have been more uproar than there was.”
