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1st October 2023
10:35am BST
Alan Shearer has described VAR's decision to disallow Luis Diaz' goal vs Spurs as a 'monumental' error.
Diaz was flagged off-side by the linesman after scoring Liverpool's opening goal but, as the subsequent VAR lines showed, the linesman was in the wrong and the goal should have stood.
Christian Romero, it soon emerged, had played Diaz onside but the VAR officials Darren England and his assistant Daniel Cook failed to communicate this with referee Howard Webb, in a moment of what was described as 'human error,' by referee's body PGMOL.
"PGMOL acknowledge a significant human error occurred," their statement read. "PGMOL will conduct a full review."
"The goal by Luiz Diaz was disallowed for offside by the on-field team of match officials. This was a clear and obvious factual error and should have resulted in the goal being awarded through VAR intervention, however, the VAR failed to intervene," it continued.
Speaking on Match of the Day, Alan Shearer described the error as 'the biggest' in VAR history.
"The one bit of VAR we have accepted and learnt we can't argue about was offside," said the former Newcastle United striker.
"This will put so much doubt into decisions that go on. It is a monumental error, we spotted it straight away.
"We are led to believe Darren England, the VAR, and Daniel Cook, the assistant VAR, have done all they should have done in terms of drawing lines but, instead of saying 'goal' for some reason had a huge lapse and said 'check complete'.
"What is the point in having an assistant VAR? It was 30-35 seconds between that and allowing kick-off. The VAR had a momentary lapse, but why can't the assistant VAR say we need to stop this?"A horrendous day for the officials and VAR. We have seen some huge problems in our time but that is the biggest. Trust is going to be a big thing going forward."
"They've panicked in the moment," added Micah Richards.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp was bemused after the game but while acknowledging the error of the officials, Klopp accepted in a sporting interview on Match of the Day that his team weren't wronged on purpose.
“I am pretty sure whoever did make that decision did not make it on purpose," said the German.
"I am pretty sure no-one is making mistakes on purpose but it still happened and at this moment I don't know why. [We] scored a fantastic goal - would it have changed the game? I don't know. But probably, because goals help.
"They didn't do it on purpose but if we want to talk about it, do it properly," added Klopp.
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