I hate talking about refereeing. I know it might not seem like it given how often I do it, but I really do hate it. I would absolutely love a world in which I didn’t know a single official’s name and spent my time watching the football without being concerned about how the man in the middle would make it all about himself. What I’m about to say also does not absolve Liverpool of any blame in the match yesterday. Yesterday, a referee that clearly has an issue with Liverpool in the form of Michael Oliver was the Video Assistant Referee and decided to award Manchester City a penalty that he would never have given to us in the same circumstances. He also ruled out a goal that he would’ve awarded if City had scored it. Meanwhile, the man who was given the task of taking charge of the game overall was from Greater Manchester. Friends of mine live in Ashton-under-Lyne and very much consider themselves to be Mancunian, both supporting Manchester United.
What on earth is happening with refereeing in the Premier League right now? Every weekend it feels like the bar for consistency gets dragged even lower.
— Greig Hopcroft (@thehopcrofts.co.uk) 10 November 2025 at 08:51
Many people will feel that there was nothing dodgy about yesterday’s refereeing, but by picking the two people that he did to take charge of the match, Howard Webb, the head of the Professional Game Match Officials Board, has left himself and his organisation open to accusations of bias. Some will find such a suggestion absurd, but it is worth bearing in mind that Michael Oliver has literally been paid good money by the owners of Manchester City in recent times to go and officiate in the United Arab Emirates. Who amongst us wouldn’t make decisions, even subconsciously, that might ensure we please a former employer in the hope that they will employ us again in the future? It might sound tin-hatty, but we know refs in other countries have taken bribes, so why is English exceptionalism at play here? Not that Webb is any stranger to screwing over Scousers and circling the wagons to protect his own, being a former officer for South Yorkshire Police. Whether true or not, the accusations are there to be made because of decisions he’s made.
The Manager Got His Team Selection Wrong
Personally, I was an advocate of changes prior to the match yesterday. I know I will be accused of hindsight with that shout, but anyone who has read any of my stuff will know only too well my concerns around Andy Robertson. I think he will go down as the best left-back in the club’s history, so this isn’t anything personal. Yet I believe that the Scot is now too old and has too many miles in his legs to be able to play several high-intensity games in a short space of time. Having started against both Aston Villa and Real Madrid, I was hugely concerned about his ability to perform at the highest level for the third time in just over a week and it was Robertson who failed to close down his men before the opening goal. Alexis Mac Allister has also looked nowhere near match fit this season. Although he produced one of his best spells in the campaign against the Spanish giants, I had similar concerns over his ability to go again off the back of such an intense performance.
Man City levels ahead of Liverpool so far.
#LFC look leggy and out of ideas.
#MCILIV
— ReviewFootball (@reviewfootball.bsky.social) 9 November 2025 at 17:23
Then there is the Mo Salah question. As with Mac Allister, I thought he put in his best performance of the season so far against Real Madrid, but he continues to look tired and overworked, largely, I think, because of the mental toll the loss of Diogo Jota has taken on him. It would have been an incredibly brave decision from Arne Slot to drop him for this game, but I want the manager of Liverpool Football Club to be brave. I want him to acknowledge that the Egyptian isn’t at the races this season and turn to a player who is. The extent to which I feel gutted and frustrated on behalf of Federico Chiesa cannot be overstated. Too many of our players looked like they didn’t have enough in their legs to be able to go again, yet Slot appears to have learned nothing on the back of the defeat to Saudi Arabian-owned Newcastle United in last season’s League Cup final. If he wants to get us back to winning more consistently, he’s going to have to be braver in his decision-making.
You Can’t Just Perform Against Madrid
Liverpool weren’t brilliant against Aston Villa, but they found their way into the game and did what needed to be done to get the result over the line. It was the springboard for a genuinely excellent performance against Real Madrid, which demonstrated all of the drive and willingness to work for each other that we’ve been longing to see from the Reds all season. It was great to witness and suggested the turning of a corner. I remained cautiously optimistic, aware of the fact that we needed to face a long-ball team such as Sean Dyche’s Nottingham Forest and come out the other side before I’d get too carried away. If that was one step forward, however, the performance against Manchester City was very much a sign of a side taking two steps back. None of the fight that we’d seen against the Spanish champions was there. The tactical discipline that we’d seen at Anfield was missing, with many of the players looking like they didn’t know what their jobs were.
Virgil Van Dijk’s goal was ruled out by VAR for an offside on Andy Robertson.
Robertson ducked out of the way of the ball.
Eight minutes later, Man City go up 2-0.
— ESPN FC (@espnfc-m.bsky.social) 9 November 2025 at 17:23
I wrote a fortnight ago about how Liverpool had been decidedly unlucky at times and it’s definitely true that we were unfortunate against City too. Whilst Gary Neville, acting in his role as Captain Disingenuous, might decide that the disallowed goal didn’t make any difference to proceedings, the truth is that getting in at 1-1 is a lot better than heading in 2-0 down. As Andrew Beasley pointed out on BlueSky, the Reds were on the receiving end of two subjective decisions going against them in the form of the penalty and the disallowed goal. Any team would struggle to recover from that, let alone one with the fragile sense of confidence that the current Liverpool side is suffering from. Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t play well in the first-half, but anyone acting as though not playing well and yet getting something from a match doesn’t happen to teams all the time simply hasn’t been paying attention to decades of the Premier League. Still, I hope we learn that you can’t just pull the big performances out when Real Madrid come to town.
