Brighton’s Diego Gomez was incorrectly not shown a red card for his high challenge on Florian Wirtz, says former head of the PGMOL, Keith Hackett. The incident occurred shortly before half-time of Liverpool’s 2-0 victory over Brighton on Saturday
Arne Slot‘s side had established a one-goal lead through Hugo Ekitike with just 46 seconds on the clock. They spent the rest of the first half trying to bolster that advantage, and with minutes until the break Wirtz found himself in the thick of the action on the edge of the visitors’ penalty area.
The £116m signing recovered the ball to keep Liverpool’s attack alive but caught a stray boot to his midriff from opposite attacker Gomez, leaving Wirtz in some pain. Pawson’s on-field decision was yellow card and this was cleared by VAR.
Without the referee being sent to review the decision using the pitchside monitor, the Premier League Match Centre X account published the statement: “The referee’s call of yellow card to Gomez was checked and confirmed by VAR – with the challenge on Wirtz deemed not to be with excessive force and not serious foul play
However, this was the wrong conclusion and Gomez should have been sent off, former referees chief Hackett has told Football Insider.
“The Brighton player had every opportunity to pull out of this foul, and there is no question that the boot was leading at pace, waist-high, and fulfilled, in my opinion, serious foul play,” he explained.
“The yellow card for this challenge was insufficient, and this incident should have seen the intervention of VAR, and a second look for the referee, who may, from his view, have had his vision of the incident compromised by the offending player.”
The outcome of the decision did not have any bearing on the result in the end as Ekitike scored his second goal of the match on the hour mark and Liverpool went on to win 2-0 at Anfield. Still, it was not without a major effort to keep the 11 men of Brighton at bay and the clean sheet intact.
Hackett was not the only one who believed the wrong call was made in the moment. Speaking on Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday, pundit Tim Sherwood stated: “I think it’s a red card, I honestly do. I just think Wirtz wins it before him, he knows it. He’s not even there to go and win the ball.”
He was followed up by former Premier League referee Mike Dean, who added: “I think it’s red. The ball’s gone up…The only thing I would say that they might look at is as he’s gone up to come down, he may have caught him on the way down.
“There’s no real force in it, but his foot shouldn’t be that high. He’s caught him in the stomach then he’s kind of come down into his body. So, for me, it’s more red than yellow