Liverpool handed new Brentford penalty verdict after Arne Slot was left fuming
Source: Liverpool Echo
Published 5 hours ago
Liverpool have been told that they were rightly denied a penalty against Brentford - and it was 'one of the best decisions this season'. That's according to former Premier League referee Mark Clattenburg.
In the first half of Saturday's 3-2 defeat in London, Liverpool star Cody Gakpo went down under a challenge from Nathan Collins. Referee Simon Hooper waved away the visitors' appeals and moments later, Brentford made it 2-0.
Post-match, Arne Slot implied that 'every referee in the world' would've given Liverpool a penalty for Collins' challenge. But Clattenburg strongly disagrees.
"I have been a big critic of referees recently, but I want to praise Simon Hooper here," Clattenburg said on the Whistleblowers podcast. "There's a couple of things a referee is going to look at.
"First, is the defender's leg planted before any contact. The leg was already there. The second is to look at the attacker's arms. If you watch a school child fall in the playground, they automatically put out their arms out to protect themselves.