Liverpool have been on the wrong end of a number of incorrect VAR decisions this season.
The biggest of which was clearly the decision to disallow Luis Diaz’s legitimate goal at Tottenham Hotspur. That the goal was accidentally ruled out following miscommunication from match officials is still difficult to digest.
But according to a study from ESPN, that wasn’t the only thing to incorrectly go against Liverpool this campaign.
They claim that the Premier League’s Independent Key Match Incidents Panel have shown that the Reds have actually been on the wrong of three further ‘errors’ that the VAR didn’t correct.
Unfortunately, this is reportedly the most in the division. No other side has had as many mistakes cost them. Wolves and Brighton are claimed to be close behind, with three errors apiece. Arsenal are one back on two and eight more clubs have had one mistake each.
In total, there are said to have been 20 blots on VAR’s copybook in 2023/24. 17 of these have reportedly been from ‘missed interventions.’ This appears to be a slight rise on last season, which ESPN claim had 25 mistakes over the whole campaign.
Liverpool unlucky with VAR
This will not come as a surprise to Liverpool fans, but may be an eye-opener for supporters of other clubs.
The Reds are often perceived as being given more favourable decisions by the match officials. However, there really isn’t anything at all to back these claims up.
Now, Liverpool can point to hard data to show that they are in fact being hard done by even more than anyone else.
The study by ESPN doesn’t actually go into detail about what these four decisions have been. Although one was clearly the error of all errors at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in September.
We’d wager that one of the others has got to be the failure to spot a clear handball by Martin Odegaard in the Anfield penalty area in December. On a basic level, these two incorrect calls have cost Liverpool three points at least.
One of the others is probably the disallow of Cody Gakpo’s goal away at Burnley.
Darwin Nunez was adjudged to have fouled Charlie Taylor in the build-up to Gakpo slamming the ball home. But replays showed there was nothing in it. In the end that one didn’t cost Liverpool.
Finally, it’s likely that Alexis Mac Allister’s overturned red card against Bournemouth is the final mistake on the list. Again, this one didn’t affect Liverpool too much on the day and was rescinded. It was still an incredibly poor decision, though.
There are others which Reds fans will feel hard done by, too. But now they can say that they’ve officially been robbed four times. Hopefully these don’t end up counting for even more in the long run.
