Ryan Mason fuming with Diogo Jota red card controversy in Tottenham Hotspur’s loss to Liverpool
Liverpool star Diogo Jota caught Tottenham Hotspur’s Oliver Skipp with a dangerous high boot in the 81st minute of the Premier League clash at Anfield on Sunday.
In real-time, it seemed like a straight red card. In slow-mo, it seemed like a red card as well. But on-field referee Paul Tierney deemed it to be just a yellow-card tackle.
VAR official David Coote seemingly agreed that it wasn’t a clear and obvious error to overturn the decision. As a result, the Portugal international stayed on the pitch and scored the winner in the fifth minute of stoppage time.
Interim manager Ryan Mason was obviously fuming after the game. He said, via BBC MOTD:
“I need an explanation, I want to know why the referee on the pitch didn’t see it, but also why an experienced one in the VAR room can’t. It’s [sic.] hard to justify how that isn’t a red card. It ticks all the boxes for dangerous play so it’s hard to understand why.”
It isn’t very uncommon for Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) to send out statements or explanations to explain dubious calls. Hopefully, there is one for us too.
In all fairness, we were trailing the game 3-2 at the moment of the incident. However, one can imagine the added pressure we would have applied on Liverpool if they were a man down.
We already had them on the backfoot for the majority of the game, especially after going 3-0 down in the first 15 minutes. We had several chances to equalise before Richarlison’s 92nd-minute header.
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Jota shouldn’t have been on the pitch to score the winner. But he was, and we can’t change that. Even a draw wouldn’t have done us much good in terms of UEFA Champions League qualification but the Reds are now in a strong position to finish at least fifth at our expense.
