It was one of the most bizarre and confusion referring decisions of the Premier League season as Anthony Taylor blew his whistle to deny Liverpool what could have been a key goal in their title race late on West Ham.
With the scores locked at 2-2, a cross came into the box and West Ham goalkeeper Alphonse Areola fell to the ground as he collected the ball. He took his time to get up but Taylor waved played on and didn’t whistle for a foul.
Areola then rolled the ball out in front of him in the box and Liverpool’s Cody Gakpo reacted as he was about to kick the ball into an empty net. But then Taylor whistled.
What is the explanation for the decision?
Our NBC Sports studio team received some guidance from the PGMOL saying: “The referee is playing advantage. He is saying there is a foul on the goalkeeper.”
Does that clear things up? Perhaps. But there was no real gesture from Taylor to play advantage, which is usually the two hands put straight out in front of him to show all of the other players on the pitch that advantage is being played. Of course, Taylor could have shouted to play advantage too.
But still, this was very confusing and all very similar to the Arsenal vs Bayern Munich incident recently where Bayern believed a goal kick had already been taken when Gabriel then handled the ball in the box to put it down to take the goal kick.
There will certainly be a push for the audio of this incident to be released to understand exactly what happened, as it seems like Areola has got away with a potential huge mistake which would have surely led to Liverpool going 3-2 up late on and their title hopes being a little rosier than with the draw they left east London with.
Source Agencies
