Ian Wright and Michael Owen think the ‘right decision’ was made not to show a second yellow card to Rodri for his foul on Cody Gakpo during Liverpool’s 4-1 defeat to Manchester City at the Etihad on Saturday.
Jurgen Klopp’s side were level at 1-1 when Cody Gakpo burst through the middle to hit Manchester City on the counter-attack, only for the January capture to be brought down by Rodri, who was already on a yellow card.
The on-field referee acknowledged that it was a foul by Rodri on Gakpo, after he pulled his shoulder back, but despite protests by the Liverpool players, no card was shown.
It has to be questioned, if the Spain international wasn’t already on a yellow card, then the referee probably would have brandished a card for that challenge.
In the end, Manchester City’s hard-hitting midfielder stayed on the field of play and the title-chasers came from behind to put four goals past Liverpool – even Jurgen Klopp thinks, if Rodri had got sent off, that his team still wouldn’t have won, as told his post-match press conference.
Nonetheless, both Ian Wright and Michael Owen reacted to that controversial moment, as they told Premier League Productions (01/04/23 at 1:35 pm).
“I think that’s a yellow card (first challenge) because he has impeded him there,” said Wright. “I just think the second one would have been really harsh, but he knows what he is doing.
“He gets his hand on him (Gakpo), but then gets them off quickly. I would have been disappointed if he got one (a yellow card) simply because I thought ‘okay that’s harsh’. But you can just give him a warning.”
Read Related Also: Win cash, food and merch in four-week McDonald's Winning Sips competition
Owen added: “I think it was the right decision not to give him a second yellow. I think the first one was a stretched-out grab and pullback.
“I think the second one, he almost cut across him, so I probably think he was just about right.”
KLOPP SUMS UP LIVERPOOL
The fact that Klopp thinks Liverpool wouldn’t have won, even if Rodri got sent off, just sums up the mess his team are in this season.
It seems as though the Reds are feeling sorry for themselves because after battling for many years with Manchester City for the title, they are now miles behind.
This time last season, they were going head-to-head for the Premier League title, yet fast forward to the present and the gap between the two is 22 points.
In other news, Roger Schmidt pens new Benfica contract amid Spurs links late last year
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘
fbq(‘init’, ‘677672980820926’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
