You can’t just blame the TV, Jürgen.
Liverpool’s defeat to West Brom in the FA Cup was filled with drama, just how we like the FA Cup. Although this time, not for the right reasons.
Video Action Referees dominated the headlines as a West Brom goal was disallowed once VAR had spotted Gareth Barry was standing in an offside position. A few minutes later, Liverpool were awarded a penalty after VAR spotted Jake Livermore impeding Mohamed Salah in the box.
The delays between the incidents and the decisions being made highlighted VAR’s biggest flaw: the length of time that it disrupts the match for. Jürgen Klopp felt aggrieved by extreme delays and felt the necessary amount of time was not added on at the end of the first half.
“You step back because you don’t want to be a bad loser or whatever. But that was the situation. I would not have spoken about it but that was the case”, he said.
He continued, seeming to blame BT Sport, who broadcasted the match, for the insufficient amount of added time. “What I heard was that the actual extra time in the first half should have been 10 minutes. It was only four minutes. I heard that television said it’s not longer than four minutes.”
“That is the situation, what can I say? Of course that’s not possible, you can’t cut match time because there is something else to broadcast. I don’t know what was afterwards, maybe the news or something.
“It was ten minutes and so you need to play ten minutes longer. You cannot say it’s now a little bit too long.”
Laughable. Not only would we accept any amount of injury time, we had no need to rush of air…it’s also impossible for us to influence such a decision. https://t.co/hQ4Cj43L7m
— Jake Humphrey (@mrjakehumphrey) January 29, 2018
Klopp raises a fair point that if the game is going to stop for this long every time VAR is used, more and more added time will have to be added on, but won’t be. Although, the victims of huge chunks of added time would more likely be the away fans needing to catch trains, not the broadcasters. BT Sport presenter Jake Humphrey strongly disagreed with Klopp’s suggestion that BT Sport had anything to do with how much time the referee added to the first half.
Still can’t believe that Jurgen Klopp ludicrously even thought to suggest that broadcasters can influence added-on time in a football game…😳 https://t.co/a7rHodoCn0
— Jake Humphrey (@mrjakehumphrey) January 30, 2018
Many have suggested these accusations from Klopp are a distraction tactic to defect from his team’s defensive deficiencies. They have still not kept a clean sheet in the three matches Virgil van Dijk has played since his £75m move from Southampton.
Perhaps it's time to start looking a little closer to home. pic.twitter.com/NAIuMz3eaU
— Alex Shaw (@AlexShawTel) January 29, 2018
