Warnock claims Liverpool and co ‘get away with murder’ with ref decisions

Neil Warnock claimed top clubs “get away with murder” regarding refereeing decisions after Liverpool were fortunate to be awarded a penalty against Crystal Palace.

Liverpool travelled to face Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park on Sunday. The visitors lead 2-0 at the break thanks to goals from Virgil van Dijk and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

Palace put Liverpool on the back foot for much of the second half. Odsonne Edouard made it 2-1 in the 55th minute and Alisson had to be at his best to keep them at bay.

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Liverpool scored their third late on. This came as they were awarded a fortuitous penalty as Diogo Jota collided with Vicente Guaita.

Fabinho stepped up to take the spot-kick and he calmly converted as Liverpool ended up winning 3-1. 

Palace boss Patrick Vieira complained about the penalty decision after the game. He believed that the referee and VAR were “naive”.

Warnock has told talkSPORT that the officials “let themselves down” during Liverpool’s victory:

“They get away with murder, the top clubs. When Kevin Friend turned to Craig Pawson. I turned to my lad and said ‘Well, that’s a penalty then – if he’s doing it.’

Warnock continued: “He said to me ‘it can’t be’ and I just told him ‘You wait.’ They look at it 40 times, then they call Kevin Friend over. As he’s going over, I said he’s got to go and say ‘No, my decision was right’. If he had done that, the credibility that referees would have got…

“Instead of doing that, he goes over and changes his mind, to the worst decision.

“As Shankly used to say, these guys know the rules but don’t know the game.

“On situations like this, you’ve got to have someone who has played the game on VAR because they [referees] don’t understand how players react.

“They’re good at 90 per cent of things and they are two good referees [Pawson and Friend] in general but, when it comes to something where you have got to have played the game, they let themselves down big time yesterday.”