Copyright Yardbarker
It’s fair to say that Virgil van Dijk didn’t agree with the decision to award Manchester City an early penalty against Liverpool on Sunday. In the 10th minute at the Etihad Stadium, Jeremy Doku skipped past Conor Bradley and Ibrahima Konate in the visitors’ penalty area and went to ground under a challenge from the advancing Giorgi Mamardashvili. Chris Kavanagh was duly summoned to the VAR pitchside monitor and, after a comprehensive review, awarded a spot kick after adjudging the Reds goalkeeper to have slightly clipped the Belgian winger. The Georgian duly held his nerve to save the subsequent penalty from Erling Haaland. When the referee announced that a spot kick would be given, several reports at the Etihad spotted Van Dijk’s far from agreeable reaction. Van Dijk sarcastically applauds penalty decision Both Adam Bate (Sky Sports) and Shamoon Hafez (BBC Sport) noticed the Liverpool captain sarcastically applayding the decision, with the former spotting the disbelief of Reds players who watched the replay on the VAR monitor. The Dutch defender continued to register his disgust when holding onto the ball for an extended time and initially refusing to hand it over to Ruben Dias. Van Dijk’s irritation was understandable While there appeared to be slight contact from Mamardashvili on Doku, the awarding of the penalty still seemed rather soft, with the incident certainly not meeting the ‘clear and obvious error’ threshold for a VAR overturn. Van Dijk’s incredulty over such a tight decision in such a pivotal Premier League clash was justified, although another referee might’ve been inclined to show the 34-year-old a yellow card for his reaction. Thankfully Mamardashvili came to Liverpool’s rescue with a magnificent save from Haaland’s spot kick, although there was nothing the goalkeeper could do to keep out the Norwegian’s header after City’s number 9 benefitted from a fortunate deflection off Konate. The champions have it all to do to claim a result today at the time of writing, but their plight could’ve been a whole lot worse without the Georgian’s heroics after having the penalty harshly given against him.
