Ex-Premier League referee labels VAR 'pure garbage' in Liverpool's win over Crystal Palace with controversial incident

Liverpool's honeymoon under Arne Slot continued as they top the Premier League table but a former referee has blasted VAR's input in a controversial incident during the win over Crystal Palace.

Slot took over in the Anfield dugout over the summer after the departure of Jurgen Klopp from Merseyside.

The Reds beat the Eagles 1-0 at Selhurst Park yesterday as they sit at the summit of the top flight having now won six of their first seven league games of the campaign.

Diogo Jota struck nine minutes into the game and it proved to be the decisive only goal of the encounter as Liverpool claimed all three points.

The encounter had a controversial moment in the second half as full-time approached when Palace had a decent penalty shout ultimately not entertained.

In this incident, Palace defender Marc Guehi appeared to be pulled back by Liverpool's Virgil van Dijk, which stopped him reaching the ball as it was crossed into the box.

The incident was not picked up by referee Simon Hooper, and nor was it brought up by VAR and the virtual assistant did not intervene as a spot kick was not awarded.

Palace boss Oliver Glasner was clear the incident merited a penalty, as he said: "I didn't see it during the game and for me it was a clear foul.

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"VAR had to intervene but they didn't."

Now, former referee Keith Hackett has waded into the debate surrounding the incident and feels Palace were indeed denied a clear penalty.

And he has labelled the decision by VAR to not assess it sufficiently as 'pure garbage' as not to intervene as 'pathetic'.

He told the Daily Telegraph: "As Marc Guehi attempts to get to the ball at the back post of the Liverpool box, Virgil van Dijk blatantly pulls him back to stop any chance of him doing so. Indeed, the Liverpool defender used both hands to commit the foul as if trying to draw attention to the fact he was doing something illegal.

"Of course, referees will miss things and, therefore, Simon Hooper is not entirely to blame despite being at fault for making the initial mistake. But for the VAR to not intervene was frankly pathetic. The whole point of VAR is to correct mistakes, not ignore them for sake of convenience or some other unknown reason."

Hackett continued: "To make things worse, the Premier League then confirmed the incident had been reviewed by VAR and put out a statement, arguing 'that the challenge was not sustained holding and had no impact on the play'. Pure garbage.

"Everyone can see it was, in fact, sustained holding and it did impact play – even if Guehi still had some work to do to reach the ball. Putting out statements like that just confuses everyone when the footage quite clearly shows the opposite. Officials need to concentrate on applying the law first and foremost. Holding is an offence in law. It really should be as simple as that."