Jurgen Klopp believes Liverpool’s disallowed stoppage-time equalizer in their 3-2 Europa League loss to Toulouse should have stayed, but he is “more concerned” with his team’s performance in France.
After a lengthy delay, referee Georgi Kabakov was advised to go to the pitchside monitor and ruled Alexis Mac Allister had handled the ball, despite the fact that it had initially bounced up off his chest very early in the move for the goal.
“I only saw the video back now and for me it’s not a handball – but how can I decide that?” said Klopp.
“Yes, the ball goes to the chest and I don’t see contact with the arm, to be honest. Maybe they had a different picture than I had. It’s pretty long ago before we score the goal, [I was thinking] ‘where’s the free-kick? That’s interesting, we could talk about that. I heard I didn’t see it, that there could have been a penalty for us in another situation, I don’t know.”
At the commencement of the sequence that led to the defender’s goal, Mac Allister inadvertently controlled the ball with his arm, which was near his body. However, according to IFAB regulations, a “accidental handball that leads to a team-mate scoring a goal or having a goal-scoring opportunity will no longer be considered an offense”. There’s a clear question that Mac Allister had no intention of controlling the ball with his arm, and numerous players touched it before Quansah completed it.
Liverpool were defeated by Toulouse 3-1, with the first goal coming courtesy of Kostas Tsimikas’ blunder as the left-back dawdled in possession.
“We cannot concede the goals we conceded again,” said Klopp.
“The first goal can happen, but then it happened in the second half with similar situations: we were completely open, last line too deep, counter-attack. On top of that, we gave the ball away easily at least twice – one was a goal, the other I am not sure if it was an allowed goal or a disallowed goal. Defending-wise it was just not good enough.” Added the Liverpool manager.
