Alan Shearer has slammed the decision to award Liverpool a drop-ball just minutes before Darwin Nunez scored their winning goal at Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
Liverpool cemented their place at the top of the Premier League in dramatic fashion, Nunez netting in the ninth minute of added-time for what was the only goal of the game. Jurgen Klopp’s side were controversially awarded possession for the eventual winner via a drop-ball, with the Uruguayan eventually heading home a sumptuous Alexis Mac Allister cross following a wave of attacking pressure.
Ibrahima Konate went down holding his head in the Liverpool box, following a collision with goalkeeper Caoimhín Kelleher, and despite Callum Hudson Odoi seemingly having control of the ball when referee Paul Tierney paused the game, they were not given back the ball. Forest players and coaching staff furiously surrounded the referee after full-time and Shearer believes they were right to feel aggrieved.
“First of all, we have to give Liverpool credit,” Shearer told Match of the Day. “Four wins in 11 days with all the problems and injuries they’ve had, to go again and have the belief to get the winner in the 99th-minute.
“He’s dropped a big clanger, Paul Tierney. He’s got it totally wrong, it’s a corner to forest late on and Konate gets a head injury. He gets knocked down by his goalkeeper, Kelleher. Paul Tierney doesn’t blow [straight away], Hudson-Odoi has the ball and then the referee blows because it’s a head injury.
“What he does is he then gives the ball unchallenged to the goalkeeper, which is totally wrong and should be a Forest unchallenged drop-ball out on the wing where the ball was stopped. I get the point of the goal being one minute and 50 seconds later, the point is valid, but if you drop it where Forest should have had it, everything changes. Liverpool don’t get the corner and the goal changes.”
