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Beth Lindop
Liverpool head coach Arne Slot said it is «obvious and clear» that Virgil van Dijk‘s goal should not have been ruled out in his team’s 3-0 defeat to Manchester City.
The Liverpool defender thought he had equalised with a header late in the first half, before the linesman deemed the offside Andy Robertson to have blocked the vision of Gianluigi Donnarumma, with VAR ruling Robertson had made an «obvious action» in front of the goalkeeper.
Slot later claimed that the decision was incorrect, but admitted that it was not the reason Liverpool lost the game.
«It is difficult to give my view,» Slot said after the match. «It is obvious and clear that the wrong decision has been made, at least in my opinion.
«[Robertson] didn’t interfere at all with what the goalkeeper could do. Immediately after the game someone showed me the goal that the same referee allowed — City against Wolves last season.
«So it took the linesman 13 seconds to raise his flag to say it was offside. So there was clearly communication, but as I said that could have influenced the game in a positive way for us.»
Liverpool have now lost five of their 11 league games this season and go into the international break in eighth place, eight points behind leaders Arsenal.
«It feels there’s too many [defeats],» Slot said in his postmatch news conference. «And the last thing I should speak about now is the title race. We should first focus on getting results before we can even think about that. The reality is that we are eighth now. One team is quite far ahead, although City is maybe four points now away from Arsenal. The rest is quite close.
«I said last season many times, even after when we were leading in the beginning, that the best way to judge the league table is of course after 38 games, but the next best thing to judge is after 19 games because then you all faced the same opponents.
«Our first focus should be on getting results and the last thing we should focus on is on the title race.»
