Jurgen Klopp exited the FA Cup at the fourth-round stage for a third consecutive season at Anfield last night, although the game was dominated by referee Craig Pawson’s use of VAR.
Eight times the official used the system, in the form of assistant Andre Marriner watching from a television studio in London, and three of those incidents in the first half proved vital as he disallowed a West Brom goal, awarded Liverpool a penalty and then allowed an Albion goal to stand.
“It’s hard to know where to start,” said Albion manager Alan Pardew. “I don’t think that is what we want to see going forward, whether you are a Liverpool or West Brom fan.
“Firstly there is no communication from the referee to us. But the bigger decision was the four minutes for the Mo Salah [penalty] decision. You are going from high-tempo workrate to nothing. We had a hamstring [injury] just after that.
“I don’t know. It is just bizarre. As a football person on the sidelines, I wasn’t comfortable with the first half. It was a mysterious situation at times.”
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Albion were leading 2-1 in the 19th minute when Craig Dawson rose superbly over Roberto Firmino to head home a Craig Brunt corner, only for the VAR to eventually rule it out for a Gareth Barry offside.
Four minutes later - and after a four-minute delay - Pawson awarded Liverpool a penalty after Salah went down under slight contact from the arm of Jake Livermore, only for Roberto Firmino to strike the bar and miss.
Deep in first-half stoppage time, Albion finally scored their third goal as Dawson’s drive took a slight deflection off Joel Matip, but only after the VAR decided Jay Rodriguez was not offside.
To Klopp’s credit, he was - and remains - a supporter of the system. “I think it’s normal that it will change things,” he said. “Is it nice that West Brom celebrate a goal then somebody tells them it’s not a goal? No, but I think it’s important if a goal needs to be disallowed, it is disallowed.
“Normally after a game I have to explain to you a defeat which was not deserved because we didn’t get a penalty or they [the opponents] scored another goal. Is it cool in January to have delays when it’s cold, especially for the players? Maybe not. But it will become smoother and more fluent in the future.”
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Even without those incidents, this was an absorbing tie, with Firmino’s superb lob, after a Salah shot had been blocked by Ben Foster, giving Liverpool a fifth-minute lead.
But the excellent Rodriguez responded with an equaliser within 65 seconds when he finished clinically from Chris Brunt’s pass and handed Albion the lead after 10 minutes when he converted a Kieran Gibbs cross from close range.
After a triple substitution midway through the second half, Liverpool looked far more threatening and Foster saved well from two of them, James Milner and Danny Ings.
But all they could manage was a 77th- minute second goal when Trent Alexander-Arnold’s driven cross was miscontrolled by Firmino and Salah pounced on the ricochet, slotting the ball home from 12 yards.
