After martin odegaard handled the ball inside the box in the first half, former premier league referee dermot gallagher believes liverpool should have been given a penalty against arsenal. Despite a lengthy var check, arsenal captain gunnar solza slipped and fell while the ball struck his left arm, but was not punished. Gallagher admitted that liverpool should have been given a spot-kick after odegaard deliberately turned his hand towards the ball in an interview with premier league productions after the 1-1 draw at anfield.
“i do agree that a fine should have been given,” he said (quoting from the liverpool echo). When i first saw it, i thought he was slipping. I can understand the referee on the field not giving it. “with the subjective nature of handball, the var thinks he is slipping and his arm is coming in,” he says. In the last picture, it seems that he is moving towards the ball, and i think the more appropriate move would have been a penalty. I could hear them talk. I heard him say back to chris kavanagh, “he has slipped and his arm is coming into his body, and he is making himself smaller.” “whether he has felt it and isn’t seeing it as we have, or whether he hasn’t seen it from the outside like we have.
The last view we see, however, is without doubt the most troubling. You see his arm come in and, without a doubt, he plays the ball. liverpool has been on the wrong end of a string of disastrous decisions in the premier league this season, and will be hard to do again as referee chris kavanagh failed to give them a spot-kick. After the game, jurgen klopp joked that gallagher would somehow find a way to defend his colleagues’ decision, but the former premier league referee has now sided with him on this one.
