Pascal Gross committed a foul which saw Mohamed Salah win a penalty for Liverpool, but some Reds fans felt the Brighton star avoided a harsher penalty from referee Anthony Taylor.
Pascal Gross avoided a red card against Liverpool because VAR did not believe he had denied a goal-scoring opportunity by taking the penalty.
The Brighton star brought down Dominik Szoboszlai in the area on the stroke of half-time to give the Reds a point. Mohamed Salah duly stepped in to slot it home to give Jurgen Klopp’s side the lead over the Seagulls, who trailed midway through the first half.
But some of the Reds’ persuasion left one feeling that Gross and Brighton should have been punished more severely. Referee Anthony Taylor was called upon to send off the German midfielder for not even giving him a warning despite a VAR review. But PGMOL’s own rules provide a clue as to why VAR did not intervene to send off Taylor Gross. The guidelines on what constitutes a denial of scorability will clarify things.
The rules state: “If a player commits a foul against an opponent in his own penalty area that prevents an obvious goal-scoring opportunity for the opponent and the referee awards a penalty, the foul must be warned if the foul was an attempt to play the ball or a challenge for the ball ; in all other circumstances (eg holding, pulling, pushing, lack of opportunity to play the ball, etc.) the offending player must be sent off.”
It appears VAR Craig Pawson did not believe the incident had goal-scoring potential. It is believed that this is because Szoboszlai did not move towards the goal and should take the ball again.
Pascal Gross avoided a red card after bringing down Dominik Szoboszla
The incident follows a row last week in which PGMOL apologized to Liverpool for “significant human error” in Spurs’ defeat. Luis Diaz’s goal was wrongly ruled out due to confusion between referee Simon Hooper and VAR Darren England.
Klopp was left screaming after the farce, even going so far as to demand a replay. But he was calmer on the south coast, saying he didn’t even realize Gross could be shown a red card.
“I didn’t understand it, to be honest. I saw it was a penalty and I didn’t think red, but now I heard it was a goal-scoring opportunity. If it’s a goal-scoring chance, we can ask the question at this point: what do you think, was it a goal-scoring chance?” said Klopp.
“Hands up. I didn’t see it back…by the way, we’ve got some hands up! But what can I say about that? I’m over it, I’m too old for that sort of thing.” We will not change it again. One zero, served on a plate, but the same situation [for us].
“We forced them to make similar mistakes around our goals. Two-on-one is a good result at half-time because they are a really good team and it is difficult to defend against them all the time. We wanted to press high, it was the right thing to do. “But at the same time it created a problem that they play sometimes, we don’t win the ball and then the pitch is very big and [we] chase. They do it well. I think it’s in the second half. should be 3- 1.
