Alexis Mac Allister believes it “weird” the manner in which Liverpool’s injury-time strike at Toulouse was disallowed but had no complaints over a shock Europa League defeat.
Jarell Quansah was denied what would have been a dramatic 97th-minute equaliser when Mac Allister was adjudged to have handled after the ball bounced off his chest 13 seconds earlier in the move. Referee Georgi Kabakov initially gave the goal after what appeared a lengthy VAR check before he was then advised to go to the pitchside monitor and subsequently disallow the strike, consigning the Reds to a 3-2 loss in France on Thursday evening.
And Mac Allister admits he was confused by the sequence of events that denied Quansah his first-ever senior goal.
“The last 10 minutes we could have scored a couple of goals,” said the midfielder. “The last situation, it’s a weird one because the referee said goal and then 10 seconds later he changed the decision. I don’t know exactly how the rule is but it first hit my chest so it’s weird. But it’s not an excuse, we didn’t play well, as we know, and it’s a fair result.” Asked why Liverpool had performed so poorly on the evening, Mac Allister added: “Well, I don’t know exactly and we will have to analyse that, but we were not good enough defensively. We missed so many challenges and that cannot happen when we play with the high line.
“We know we are in a good position, we are first and we will do our best in the next games to qualify as soon as possible. It was a tough one and we want to improve.”
There was better news earlier in the day with confirmation the father of Liverpool winger Luis Diaz had been released 12 days after being kidnapped by a group of local guerrillas in his native Colombia.
