Steven Gerrard has hit out at officials over two penalty incidents in Aston Villa’s defeat at Liverpool. Mo Salah bagged his 14th Premier League goal of the season after a coming together with Tyrone Mings inside the box on 66 minutes, with Gerrard claiming how the Egyptian fouled Mings prior to going down.
Steven Gerrard said: “We’ve lost to a soft penalty because if you watch it properly, Tyrone’s been fouled first. The disappointing thing is that the referee hasn’t gone to look at it. It’s always hard to take when you lose football matches. We knew it was going to be a containing job. You have to ride the first 20-25 minutes against sides like this. We finished the game stronger, with more belief and some good opportunities.”
Villa, though, had strong penalty shouts denied late on as Danny Ings was seemingly swiped by Reds stopper Alisson after a mix up between the Brazilian and Joel Matip in the build-up.
Steven Gerrard said: “If an arm goes anywhere near Alisson, it’s a foul. So why isn’t a foul given for Danny Ings? They are the questions I’d like answering, but I can’t answer them right now.”
On his side’s performance against his former side,
Steven Gerrard said: “In hindsight I should have thrown a bit more at it a bit earlier, but you have to be careful Liverpool don’t hit you for two, three or four. I thought Liverpool were better in terms of general play. Their style was better than ours, but we’ve done so well to contain them for large periods. Ultimately the game was decided by a penalty. There were two penalty incidents in the game, Liverpool got theirs – if you look at that one, Salah fouls Mings first. It’s always hard to take when you lose football matches. We knew it was going to be a containing job. You have to ride the first 20-25 minutes against sides like this. We finished the game stronger, with more belief and some good opportunities. In hindsight I should have thrown a bit more at it a bit earlier, but you have to be careful Liverpool don’t hit you for two, three or four. In terms of commitment and application, I couldn’t be more pleased and proud. We have a tough game at Norwich in midweek. It’s an opportunity for us to go there, bounce back and get a positive result.”
