Significant human error cost Liverpool in their draw with Brighton yet again
Brighton and Liverpool drew a game where all the visible mistakes came from the players – not that you would necessarily know that…
It was a very good game between two very good teams, with some pretty big individual mistakes from both sides. Major human errors, if you will.
We are very sorry for this. And the title. We tried to fight back, but we had almost zero willpower to resist the obvious weak resentments. We’re not alone, as “game replay” is currently trending on Hellscape X (formerly the online hellscape Twitter) and even Sky Sports themselves have been tweeting deliberately and wildly misleading footage of the action, because who wants facts when you’ve got all the delicious engagement of people who think crying laughing emoticons are a sign of wit?
There was no way this game could avoid being painted last week. Both sides. Brighton’s 6-1 thrashing of Aston Villa is the kind of thing that could destabilize a side whose style of play requires absolute buy-in and complete confidence. Liverpool now have to accept that all the big decisions they make in games have a prism through which they are viewed. See, we do it even now in spite of ourselves. And that’s a shame, because it was a good, fun game of football, and all the big mistakes came almost entirely from the lineup, not the reporters. There is no need to talk about civil servants after that. But look at all of us.
The first notable mistake came from Liverpool who scored a disastrous opening goal, with a mistake compounding until Alisson could do nothing and Alexis Mac Allister was clearly unhappy about it. Good process. It was a messy ending. Trent Alexander-Arnold moved into his usual midfield/right combination position, and Alisson brought the ball out of his area to become a right-sided centre-back in the back quarter as Liverpool looked to play the ball out from the back. He threw the ball to Virgil van Dijk, who played a hospital pass to Mac Allister who was picked out by the excellent Simon Adingra, and as Alisson slowly realized the disaster around him (sometimes the analogies are too obvious), the Brighton winger. hit the ball into a semi-protected net.
But Liverpool are at their best at the back, so maybe it was all part of a plan. They were certainly not far behind thanks to Mo Salah’s quick-fire double five minutes before the break. The first goal came from a double fault by Lewis Dunk; first he gave the ball away, then made it worse in classic fashion, jumping out of his position to try to compensate, leaving a gap which Liverpool mercilessly exposed through a perfectly informed Harvey Elliott dummy and a crisp Salah finish.
Liverpool’s second came when Pascal Gross made a perfect mess from behind and had no choice but to drag Dominic Szoboszlai to the ground. It was a clear punishment. That clear penalty was awarded. Salah scored a clear penalty.
After that, people on the net began to exercise a lot whether Gross’s action denied a clear scoring opportunity. There was really no attempt to play the ball, so a red card would have been in play. It’s a reasonable question, but it’s a very subjective request, and Szoboszlai hasn’t had the ball in his hands yet. Soon he would have, if Gross had not illegally interfered. We are afraid to say that this is one of them and it would really help if everyone accepted as much instead of adding to the growing sense of injustice and anger bubbling up around everything the officials do. It was not some serious and unforgivable mistake. It’s easy to say it wasn’t a mistake.
We saw that reverse in the second half as a much improved Brighton enjoyed a good spell which culminated in their equaliser. Just before that, they had penalty appeals turned down when the ball bounced off Van Dijk’s knee and into his hands. So it wasn’t a punishment. It wasn’t even a controversial decision, it was very simple, no matter how many misleading shots were decided to be shared.
It was therefore disappointing to see Roberto De Zerbi react in the same way despite seeing the replay. His response earned him a warning and advice from Jurgen Klopp to perhaps downplay it. Now that alone should be enough to give anyone pause. Dunk’s tying goal and the actual correction of his earlier error seemingly ensured the correct result in a game that both teams led but neither won. Both teams will likely see this as a point lost rather than a point gained, especially considering how tight things are up top right now.
Liverpool had a great chance to take a 3-1 lead when Szoboszlai brilliantly brought up Ryan Gravenberch who almost hit the ball too well when he should have scored.
Both teams had chances to make it 2-2, but were unable to capitalize on them. Both teams have the option not to, based on the correct refereeing decisions. Let’s hope they at least take advantage of this opportunity.
