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Alan Shearer can’t believe the decision Paul Tierney made less than two minutes before Liverpool netted a 99th minute winner against Nottingham Forest yesterday.
The game looked to be ending goalless at the City Ground until substitute Darwin Nunez latched onto the end of Alexis Mac Allister’s cross and headed home to earn the Reds all three points.
The former Newcastle United forward has slammed referee Tierney however, after he handed possession to Liverpool despite Forest’s Callum Hudson-Odoi being in control of the ball prior to play being stopped for Ibou Konate’s head injury.
The home side’s backroom staff raced onto the pitch at full-time to confront Tierney while Jurgen Klopp’s side celebrated with the travelling Kopites behind the goal.
“He’s dropped a big clanger, Paul Tierney,” said the Premier League’s record goalscorer on Match of the Day (via Liverpool ECHO). “He’s got it totally wrong. It’s a corner to Forest late on, and Konate gets a head injury.
“He gets knocked down by his goalkeeper, Kelleher, and Paul Tierney doesn’t blow [straight away]; Hudson-Odoi has the ball, and then the referee blows because it’s a head injury. He blows when Forest have the ball.
“What he does is he then gives the ball unchallenged to the goalkeeper, which is totally wrong and should be a Forest unchallenged drop-ball out on the wing where the ball was stopped. That’s who touched it last.
“I get the point of the goal being one minute and 50 seconds later; the point is valid, but if you drop it where Forest should have had it, everything changes. Liverpool don’t get the corner, and the goal doesn’t happen.”
We understand where Shearer is coming from but the exact same thing happened to Liverpool in the first half when Ryan Yates went down with a head injury. This appears to have been forgotten about by Forest’s staff and most in the media, however.
Nunez’s 14th goal of the season (across all competitions) came just shy of two minutes after the game was restarted so you can’t really argue our winner came as a direct result of the referee’s actions.
Richard Keys and Andy Gray have also voiced their dismay at the referee’s decision.
It was a huge victory for Liverpool and one that saw our lead at the top of the Premier League extended to four points ahead of the Manchester derby this afternoon.
