Both Liverpool and Tottenham were undefeated in their top-flight matchups, but the excessive intervention of the referees made the match less than competitive.
Curtis Jones was sent off in the opening 26 minutes and Joe Gomez was brought down but without a foul. A series of inconsistent decisions were made, including no card being shown to Destiny Udogie who requested a yellow card.
Most problematic was Liverpool’s phantom first goal. Despite Luis Diaz getting out onside and scoring with a superb shot, the goal was cancelled out due to miscommunication by the referees, and a goal was scored for Tottenham shortly afterwards.
It is difficult to generalize about handballs and red cards, as they involve the subjectivity of the referee, but as for offsides, the line is normally drawn and the matter is dealt with appropriately.
Jarrod Bowen, a 26-year-old forward who plays for West Ham, also mentioned that he was at a loss as to when to celebrate after scoring a goal.
“I ask him for anything. I think I asked him for the Liverpool header last week – there was no chance I was offside but I just wasn’t sure,”
“You never know what it is going to get pulled up for.
“You do kind of second guess now. I think in the moment unless you look around and the ref hasn’t given a foul or the linesman’s not got his flag up, you know you can celebrate, but it’s almost like ‘am I celebrating for nothing here?'”
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The winger, who has also been called up to the England national team, referring to the controversy surrounding Luis Diaz’s goal, said that while he hopes the furor will be resolved soon, it may be a kick in the pants to reduce mistakes.
“It is the main talking point at the minute and hopefully it can get sorted,”
“We’ll see what happens from that.”
“I think we all saw the mistake [to rule out Diaz’s goal] and what happened. If that happened to you it would obviously cost you the game at the end of the day. It must be disappointing for them [Liverpool] but moving forward I think it can keep going as it is and hopefully cut out the mistakes.”
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