Well did he or didn’t he?
Crystal Palace centre-half Damien Delaney is adamant he did not touch Liverpool’s Christian Benteke to give away a match-losing penalty deep into injury time on Sunday.
BUT!…if he did, it wasn’t enough to cause the Belgian to go down in the manner that he did. We’re glad that that’s been cleared up.
Following manager Alan Pardew’s bizarre post-match behaviour, Delaney took to his Instagram account to protest his innocent…but ended up somewhat contradicting himself.
“I can honestly say I didn’t make contact with benteke today and IF there was slight contact I didn’t impede him and certainly didn’t feel there was enough to award a penalty in the 96th min…
“If a penalty is awarded that late it has to be unequivocal, I waited over an hour to speak with the officials and in fairness to Andre Marriner he said he didn’t think it was a penalty but he trusted his linesman that much he awarded it.
“With the way the game was ref’d and the physicality of both teams it was unbelievably harsh. With how Wilfred and Yannick were man handled by Liverpool players over the course of the game, which I’ve no problem with, it was a really tough decision to take so late. All I can do is swallow it and hope to put this right.”
As you can probably guess, there were plenty of Liverpool fans at hand to point out the flaws in the Palace man’s argument and mock his flip-flopping story…
https://twitter.com/majortom_LFC/status/706768834372317184
Damien Delaney on Instagram…😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/HrRDr2s48N
— Scott (@RedsOrDead) March 7, 2016
https://twitter.com/diasporational/status/706785798713167872
Hahaha, does Damien Delaney not realise there was cameras there yesterday actually sounds like he has convinced himself he hasn't
— John O Sullivan (@Corballyred) March 7, 2016
Damien Delaney: I can honestly say I didn't make contact with Christian Benteke https://t.co/jqyjkQVy6q pic.twitter.com/5Trd448DXf
— YourBoyDotty (@YourBoyDotty) March 7, 2016
https://twitter.com/SuperGops/status/706785232620560384
Can someone find Damien Delaney's head please? He seems to have lost it. pic.twitter.com/JAAk4o8Mtz
— Sam McGuire (@SamMcGuire90) March 7, 2016