Forest vs Liverpool referee Paul Tierney has not been selected to referee the next set of Premier League fixtures following his drop-ball blunder at the City Ground on Saturday.
Tierney made the decision to drop the ball back at Liverpool keeper Kelleher’s feet after play had been stopped during Nottingham Forest’s possession for a head injury on Ibrahima Konate in the dying minutes of extra time.
Liverpool went on to score a vita winning goal less than two minutes after being handed possession by the referee, leaving an incensed Nottingham Forest on the wrong side of a 1-0 loss.
Tierney’s mistake caused an uproar in the City Ground, in which Liverpool’s Andy Robertson had to save a 6-year-old fan from enraged fans and Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis followed the officials down the tunnel at the end of the match. Marinakis may face an FA probe for his actions.
Former Premier League referees Mike Dean and Mark Clattenburg have each reached the mutual conclusion that, as per the rules of the game, Tierney’s decision was a wrong one.
“The law states that whoever has the ball last when play is stopped, the ball is returned to them. Callum Hudson-Odoi clearly had the ball, and the ball should have been given back to Nottingham Forest.” said Mike Dean on the decision.
“There has been a big fallout and rightly so, it’s a big error by the match referee. It’s something they are going to have to live and learn from – it’s a mistake, we all know it’s a mistake.” he went on to say.
Mark Clattenburg, who is also the referee analyst at City Ground said “If the referee stops the game, he has to give the ball back to the team in possession. That was Forest.”
“When [the ball was] given to the keeper, with Liverpool scoring afterwards, you can see why [Forest] are aggrieved,” Clattenburg added.
Former Manchester United defender Gary Neville has, however, in a sense defended Tierney. He insists that it was not the referee’s mistake, a mistake though it was, that earned Liverpool their winning goal.
“I saw Mike Dean’s interview earlier today, where he described it as a ‘monumental error’,” said Neville. “There is no doubt the Nottingham Forest player is in possession but the goal came a minute and 50 [seconds] after that. Two minutes in football is an absolute age.”
He went on to say “The idea that it was a ‘monumental error’… I get the fact it was a mistake, a frustration, but I get the feeling now that we’re making too much out of what I feel is a run-of-the-mill error. You see them quite regularly in a season.”
Whether you agree that Paul Tierney’s late refereeing error won Liverpool the match or not, he has not been selected for the next set of Premier League fixtures.
He has, however, been given the responsibility of VAR for Arsenal’s home game against Brentford next Saturday.
Do YOU think that Paul Tierney was the reason for Liverpool’s late winner on Saturday? VOTE BELOW! 👇
