Bernardo Silva accused of kicking out at Mohamed Salah during fiery clash

Manchester City midfielder Bernardo Silva has been accused of kicking out at Mohamed Salah during a fiery clash which led to Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp’s dismissal. 

The incident happened with around five minutes left of the match, Silva appeared to have dragged Salah to the floor right in front of the linesman but both he and the referee, Anthony Taylor were unmoved and play went on. 

This eventually led to Klopp being shown a red card after he charged down the touchline in pure anger as he demanded answers from the linesman. 

However, eagle-eyed fans have spotted Silva appearing to kick out at Salah after their altercation. You can watch the footage below. 

One fan said: “I didn’t even see that, VAR should have spotted that snide kick from Bernardo on Salah.”

Another tweeted: “@premierleague @FA_PGMOL When are you going to teach your referees to do their jobs properly? How is this allowed?” 

Whilst a third fan also spotted an elbow by Silva: “What was the linesman looking at here that he didn’t see a blatant foul followed by a kick and an elbow? I mean he’s right there, about 2m away.” 

Klopp criticised Taylor’s decision not to give a foul during his post-match interview. 

He said: “But you cannot have this situation. It is the clearest foul I ever saw in front of the linesman and he is not bothered. It is clear. They just watch the game but we [the managers] are involved.” 

Whilst Silva urged the referees to be more consistent in the future. 

The Portuguese said on Sky Sports: “What we expect from the referees is consistency in their decisions. 

“When you go through a path of not whistling little contacts throughout the whole game, you need to keep those decisions and keep going that way. If you want to whistle all of them, whistle all of them.

“But if from the beginning of the game you’re not whistling little fouls – and we saw in this game that he was letting us play, which is good, which is fine – then if there is a goal you cannot whistle a soft one.” 

Silva added: “If you want consistency from a referee, you cannot change [approach] just because there is a goal and just because it’s a tough decision.

“You have to make the tough decision and keep the goal, in my opinion.”