Liverpool: Jamie Carragher says situation surrounding VAR ‘at crisis point’

The situation surrounding the video assistant referee “is at crisis point” following Luis Diaz’s disallowed goal on Saturday, says Jamie Carragher.

VAR failed to intervene when Diaz was wrongly flagged for offside with the game goalless between Liverpool and Tottenham in the first half.

PGMOL, the governing body for referees, said the incorrect decision was down to “a significant human error”.

“I don’t think the feeling around VAR has ever been lower,” said Carragher.

Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota were also sent off during the controversial match as Liverpool were beaten 2-1 by Spurs after Joel Matip’s own goal deep into stoppage time.

The club are to appeal against the red card given to Jones for fouling Yves Bissouma after 26 minutes following a VAR intervention.

Speaking on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football, former Reds defender Carragher added: “I do feel as if this is almost like a crisis point for VAR in this country.

“It is not just on the back of this decision, it is what has been happening all season, like when there was a situation with Wolves against Manchester United.

“I don’t want to pile on to an official or [referees’ chief] Howard Webb – I could imagine they feel absolutely awful the last couple of days.

“I am not into the conspiracy theories, that this one favours that team or another – no-one gains anything from this in terms of the officials.

“We have all been there in our jobs and made mistakes, so I feel for them.

“But it is a horrendous mistake that is unprecedented, and you can’t actually quite believe the explanation that has been given.”

Liverpool criticised PGMOL’s response to the controversial incident, saying the explanation was “unacceptable” and “sporting integrity has been undermined”.

On Monday, the club made a formal request for the audio recordings between the match officials to better understand how the breakdown in communication happened.

Darren England, who was on VAR duty, and assistant VAR Dan Cook were stood down from duty for the rest of the weekend because of the error at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

‘We’re not asking for rocket science’

Former Newcastle and Republic of Ireland goalkeeper Shay Given told BBC Radio 5 Live the fallout from the wrongly upheld VAR decision was “one big mess”.

Play was cleared to continue despite still images showing Tottenham defender Cristian Romero playing Colombia winger Diaz onside.

It is understood the correct procedure was followed for the offside decision but the mistake was down to human error.

“Just say ‘it’s a goal’, ‘it’s not a goal’ – it’s as simple as that,” said Given on the Monday Night Club.

“We’re not asking for rocket science, but at the same time there’s a VAR guy, there’s an assistant VAR guy, and there’s a third guy in there. How these people can get such a big moment wrong in such a big game is beyond me.

“People say ‘you need to get ex-players in there’ or ‘we need to get people in there that know the game’. I don’t know, I think anyone could have watched that on Saturday and saw it was the wrong decision.”

Chris Sutton agreed with Carragher that he did not want to see strong repercussions for referee Simon Hooper and the two VAR officials.

“I know there are Liverpool fans out there who think it’s a conspiracy and I’ve got to say, I don’t really understand the Liverpool statement,” said Sutton.

“What do they want from that? Where is this heading? What’s the endgame?

“And I’ve also got sympathy for the referees and the assistants who made that mistake because it’s going to be unbearable, their lives, for however long now.

“It’s a bad mistake. We all make mistakes.”

The victory for Tottenham lifted them to second in the Premier League table, while Liverpool are one point behind Spurs in fourth.