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Opinion
Michael Salisbury made a serious mistake during Liverpool 4-1 Ipswich and VAR should have helped
Liverpool maintained their lead in the Premier League title race with a dominant performance against Ipswich Town at Anfield, running out 4-1 winners.
Arne Slot’s Liverpool side coꦜntinue to prove their class on a weekly basis, a team who are currently showing no signs that they are about to surrender their six-point advantage over Arsenal.
Of course, Liverpool do have a couple of tricky tests to come – with an away trip to Bournemouth next up in the Premier League now lꦰooking like a difficult tie.
Slot will certainly need to lean on his extended squad, including the likes of Wataru Endo who was subject to a very poor challenge from Julio Enc𒁏iso after coming on against Ipswich.
Endo replaced Ryan Gravenberch in the 68th minute and was the♔n challenged with so𓂃me force by Enciso 12 minutes or so later.
Julio Enciso deserved to be sent off for dangerous challenge on Wataru Endo
It was a day of controversial decisions across the Premier League – Arsenal’s Myles Lewis-Skelly rec🌄eived a dubious r𝕴ed card in their 1-0 victory over Wolves.
And whilst Lewis-Skelly’s red wasꦚ widely considered♚ as undeserved, it felt as if Enciso should have been given his marching orders at Anfield.
READ MORE: Danny Murphy thinks he knows what happens ✤to Liverpool whenever Ibrahima Konate doesn’t start
To date, Encsio has never receive🐻d a red card and has only yielded four cautions in 45 appearances in the Englཧish top flight.
However, he got it wrong when challenging Endo – he jumped with excessive fo♏rce in an uncontrolled manner, first making contact with his foot and then with his knee.
Michael Salisbury decided to give 🎶the on-loan Brighton & Hove Albion𝓰 midfielder a yellow card for the untidy moment, but it felt like red was deserved.
No one wants to see Premier League footballers sent off unnecessarily, but Endo was lucky to waౠlk away mostly unscathed, an ill-timed challenge that Enciso looked to immediately regret.
Of course, these are the exact kind of moments VAR was introduced for, to help the referee with the benefit of more replays and s🐈low-motion if needed.
And it is surprising that Salisbury wasn’t at least sent to the mo⛎nitor, a decision ♏he may have then changed with the benefit of extra help.
Arne Slot praises Wataru Endo for his ‘unbelievable’ mentality
Slot was asked about♏ the incident at his press conference, with the Liverpool manager choosing to praise Endo f🅷or his bravery to continue.
Slot said: “When the foul was made I was like ‘oh, that doesn’t look good’ and the reaction from thಞe players around him showed me like ‘let’s wai𝐆t and see’.
“But imm🌜🍸ediately during the game already, he shakes his head one or two times and just goes again.
“His mentality is unbelievable. And he was fine. It was only a yellow, so I assume that the fear I had was♕ not r💎ealistic.”
READ MORE: Liverpool fans make Cody Gakpo c🎃laim after resounding win over Ipswich
The Liverpool bos🎐s was then asked if he thought that Salisbury had only awarded a yellow given the context of the game – the home side were 4-0 up at the time and cruising to a win.
Slotꦺ replied: “In general I don’t think referees act like that.
“Because if they do so they probably hear it from the people above them, ‘you have to do what is necessa꧃ry’.
“So I assume that it was a yellow.🦩 I haven’t seen it back, but I assume it was a yellow.”
An unsavoury moment that deserved a red c🔯ard on second viewing, a decision that VAR should have helped with.