Neil Mellor has pointed out a major incident prior to the first goal Liverpool conceded last weekend that went unnoticed.
Liverpool came unstuck against Manchester City within five minutes of the crucial and potentially title-deciding match when they took a quick free-kick to Kevin De Bruyne, which saw his strike take a major deflection off of Joel Matip and left Alisson helpless in the goal.
Should Man City's first goal have stood?
Yes!
No!
The Reds didn’t let that get to them too much as they equalised through Diogo Jota after 13 minutes in what turned out to be an extremely entertaining game with chances at both ends, however, the tempo and mood of the game could’ve changed completely had Anthony Taylor spotted where Man City took their quick free-kick from.
Mellor has identified that Man City didn’t take the free-kick from where the foul was committed by Fabinho, claiming: “I have seen some officials insist on the free-kick taken where the foul took place!” This would have stopped City from potentially getting the first goal of the match.
TIF Thoughts on Anthony Taylor’s performance…
Law 13 states that all free kicks are taken from the place where the offence occurred, which clearly isn’t the case with the above.
In a game of such magnitude and importance to both teams, it is decisions such as this one that could end up deciding games or titles, because if Taylor spots this and calls it back then the whole sequence of events changes, and Liverpool may have gained a better foundation to build upon in the first half.
This was not the only debatable incident, though, with Thiago potentially getting away with a second yellow card for a tackle on De Bruyne, but with there being 23 fouls during the game, it’s no surprise that a few controversial issues have since arisen, although both sides leaving with a point would suggest that neither team have been more hard done by than the other.
In other news: Anthony Taylor may have made big Liverpool error as Man City image emerges – opinion