Despite the extremely loud surroundings, Jurgen Klopp was naturally in a bad mood as he tried to digest Liverpool’s Europa League defeat.
Steve McManaman, the former midfielder for Liverpool, was shocked by the decision to disallow Jarell Quansah’s late goal. In the seventh minute of added time, Quansah scored a goal to tie the score at three, but it was disallowed because Alexis Mac Allister was called for ball handling during the build-up. This would have been Quansah’s first goal for the senior team.
But it was only after a protracted VAR review—during which referee Georgi Kabakov seemed to give the goal at one point—that the strike was declared out. However, in a matter of seconds, Kabakov blew for full-time and declared the strike out after being called over to the monitor.
Speaking about the match that Liverpool lost 3-2, McManaman expressed shock that the goal had been disallowed. “This was seven or eight movements before the goal even happened,” he said to TNT Sports.
“He’s given handball! What on earth? Talking about re-reffing the game. That happened… I’m astonished. Chest onto the arm but then the game carries on and there’s a thousand things that happen after that.
“Astounded by that. This reffing in Europe has not been seen in its greatest light over these last couple of days at all.
“I get if it’s handball then right into the back of the net but the referee has just missed it and the game carries on and a thousand things happen.”
While Ref Support UK, who are a registered charity dedicated to independent training, support and development of referees, simply asked what the laws of handball now were.
They said on X: “If anyone knows the handball law can you let us know.”
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