Thanks @Zoran 
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Referee Michael Oliver says he has watched over and over again the incident in the Merseyside derby earlier this season where Virgil van Dijk suffered a serious knee injury in a collision with Jordan Pickford and admits it was a mistake not to send Pickford off. #awlfc [mail] https://t.co/20ksAbDULF
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Here is the full interview, always liked Oliver in spite of the Everton match.
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Too late for your guilty conscience
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Perhaps not in the PL but it happens on more than one occasion in every game Barcelona plays, they are notorious for it.
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From that article:
Look at section three: he’s basically saying that players have to ask for a decision. Maybe we should be like Manchester United and surround the ref every time he blows the whistle?
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My first thought. This is recognition that if we want decisions, the first thing we should be doing, before any cryarsing and moaning about unfairness, is to actually ask for them.
First thing tomorrow at Kirkby there should be a team meeting at which that article is the discussion point.
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Exactly this. It’s stupid, but it is what it is. He is basically admitting that the players didn’t moan about it so he didn’t even consider it.
The blame of course is with Prickford and Richarlison, but the ref’s handing of the flow of the game encouraged these types of wild challenges to go on. He failed big time in this.
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And VAR supposedly looking for clear errors?
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Also from the article, what was interesting:
It’s all still subjective. It’s still somebody’s opinion. You make the decision on the field and somebody then has the chance to look at it again but when we sit and discuss clips weekly on Zoom you put 16 of us in a room and we are split 8-8 or 9-7 or 10-6.
We all know this already, but it shows that this is where certain teams get the advantage. When it’s a 50-50 decision, you would expect over the course of a season for variance to iron itself out.
But we all can see that a certain team when it’s a 50-50 decision, rather than the 16 refs being split 8-8 or 9-7, they’ll be more like 12-4 in the scum’s favour.
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That’s Oliver passing the buck.
Sure we need to question the referee more but that should in no way absolve him and the VAR officials and system for what was a complete and utter clusterfuck.
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Let’s try it once or twice… Then we get the reputation of ‘cry babies’…so we can’t win.
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I am a bit gobsmacked at this, I used to be a referee instructor before I left England for NZ. I didn’t have to think twice to look at the challenge to see that it endangered the safety of the player as the 1st and main job of a referee is the safety of the players, the lack of understanding and application of the so called ‘professional’ referees involved is beyond my comprehension.
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so its our players fault that Pickford wasnt sent off.
Aye, very good Michael,
talk about passing the buck!
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To be fair Coote should have intervened and he chose not to, again on a Liverpool match it seems fishy when he is involved.
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Coote is just an out and out incompetent referee. I have watched him ref or behind VAR, each time he came off as a donkey. (Sorry donkeys.)
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Makes little difference. Putting Virgil out for the season wouldn’t make it better had he been sent off.
Everyone knows they fucked up. Should have kept their mouths shut.
Big history of him fucking us over.
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We would be a couple of points better off.
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Of course there is that, given in seasons not long gone the title’s been won/lost by a single point.
I was meaning more along the lines of it’s empty, in the past, gone. Coming out and saying it now means fuck all. We all know they fucked it. They knew they fucked it. What’s to be gained now.
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