Tom Cairney insisted that Issa Diop didn’t touch Darwin Nunez for the controversial penalty that cost Fulham a point at Anfield last night.
Stuart Attwell pointed to the spot after the Liverpool forward went to ground after looking to pinch possession from the French defender in the area, but television replays showed there was scant contact between the two. The decision spot – and Mo Salah scored the only goal of the game – something that incensed Fulham’s players, who protested vigorously to Attwell at the time.
Captain Cairney, who played more than seventy minutes in place of the injured Andreas Pereira, was particularly frustrated.
I thought we played very well at times, but to lose to a penalty that wasn’t a penalty is always a kick in the you-know-whats. At the time, I wasn’t sure. The ref made a decision, I thought he’d seen contact. I asked him on the pitch, ‘please just make sure they check it.
He said they checked it, but he said second half to one of our players that it wasn’t a penalty, so it’s frustrating because it goes to other people to make the correct decision. Issa Diop hasn’t touched him, Nunez has taken another step and then gone over, and then you lose to something like that at Anfield which is frustrating when we’re trying to climb as high as we can.
The Scottish midfielder insisted he was proud of Fulham’s display last night – and that of how Marco Silva’s side have risen to the challenge of competing in the top flight.
We’ve made massive, massive strides this season, which people didn’t expect us to, so we can take a lot of positives from that moving forward. We’re in the top half and we deserve to be. If we said we’d be above Chelsea after 34 games at the start of the season, people wouldn’t have believed us.
Honestly, performance-wise, we’ve done really well all season. We’ve just said we’ve got four games left, four cup finals. We’ve set our own targets in our minds, our goals for the football club, and we’re looking to do that.”
it is about time the appalling standard of refereeing in this country is addressed. Scrap VAR. If the ref is in charge of the game then we do not need VAR, if not then let VAR call the shots and not the incompetent refs that we have.
It is clear that the referees are still unilaterally punishing Fulham for the Mitro event.
They are effectively imposing points deductions by giving penalties against Fulham and not giving penalties to Fulham.
Is this how football should be run? Clearly not, but there is no mechanism at the moment to do anything about it.
I don’t think the penalty should have been given but at the same time Diop took far too long to clear the ball, he should have just booted it up field he is too slow to try playing it out from our box and also too clumsy. He cost us a point and we have to stop giving penalties away we have given too many already this season.
Watching in the away end I thought it was a penalty in the moment, not helped by Diop looking really slow and clumsy – I think that’s why the ref gave it and VAR didn’t overturn his decision. Obviously watching the replays it looks like a ridiculous award and I bet we wouldn’t have gotten it. Story of our season against “big” teams
Agree with the comments if the Ref said to TC it’s wasn’t a penalty then surely the Ref can overrule it I thought the VAR was to assist the Ref As Robin said we are still being punished for the Mitro incident Why? BDR against Man City was a penalty and the Ref admitted it why we are having the Pxxs taken out of us now because of one incident but we cant say anything because of the bias of being a small club I tend to agree with Marco about being a conspiracy and a corrupt FA without the so called small clubs there would be no Premiership and everyone would get bored about Man City ManUtd Liverpool Chelsea etc playing each other every other week and that’s not good for football