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Who's offside???
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It was a clear dive and the referee, Jon Moss, was right to caution him. Alli has been guilty in the past of exaggerating contact. Because he’s been caught he only gets a yellow card, whereas if it had been missed by Moss, it would have been spotted retrospectively and he’d have been banned for two games. I’ve argued before that the same offence should get the same punishment and everyone who gets caught diving should be banned for two games, whether or not it is spotted on the day.
FIRST PENALTY
1. Was it offside?
This should not have been a penalty because it was offside. At Anfield, because of the atmosphere, it can be difficult to hear each other on the headsets, which is why Moss went over to talk to his assistant Eddie Smart. The assistant had said that Harry Kane was in an offside position. The question then is whether Dejan Lovren deliberately played the ball and has Kane, by being in an offside position, impacted Lovren.
The issue is not whether it touched the defender, but whether he played it deliberately. A professional footballer would not have played it into Kane’s path on purpose. From the way he was facing, if it had been deliberate, the ball would have gone up the field. You can make an argument that Lovren would not have made this type of attempt for the ball if Kane was not close to him and, therefore, the impact of his presence plays a part in the decision-making of the referee.
2. Was it a dive?
It shouldn’t have been a penalty because it was offside, but Kane didn’t dive. Loris Karius just caught him — there wasn’t much contact but there was some — and the Liverpool goalkeeper’s reaction says it all. He immediately put his head to the turf. He knew he’d made a terrible error. If there had been no contact he’d have leapt up immediately and accused Kane of cheating.
SECOND PENALTY
This a tough decision. I believe that there is a suspicion of offside in the build up to the penalty. The ball is touched by Fernando Llorente and into Érik Lamela, who is fractionally offside in my opinion. As we have seen with VAR now, offside is a matter of fact and no benefit is given to the attacking team. Therefore, the penalty should not have been allowed. Once the offside is missed, It looks as though Virgil van Dijk goes to kick the ball and then tries to pull away his leg, but there is a still a bit of contact. It is a soft penalty, but not definitely a wrong call.
I can see why Moss didn’t originally give it and I was surprised Smart flagged it as a penalty. It is rare and very brave for an assistant referee to do that when it seemed like a 50-50 call. In that situation, I would have wanted some discussion and for the assistant to tell me what he had seen. I would then make a decision. Once the assistant’s flag has gone up, Moss is bound to give it as he has got to publicly support his colleague. To be fair to Moss, I thought he refereed the game very well, but the team work at the end could have been improved and he needed better support from his assistant referee
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