Alan Shearer and Gary Lineker disagree over refereeing call from Liverpool’s win v Chelsea | OneFootball

Alan Shearer and Gary Lineker had differing views on one incident from Liverpool’s 2-1 win over Chelsea at Anfield on Sunday.

With the Reds 1-0 to the good just before half-time, John Brooks pointed for a penalty after Robert Sanchez crashed into Curtis Jones and sent the midfielder flying, but the decision was overturned by VAR after they deemed the Blues goalkeeper to have played the ball first.

It was one of several refereeing calls during the game which elicited plenty of debate afterwards, and the two BBC pundits had their say on it during the post-match discussion on The Rest Is Football podcast.

Shearer and Lineker debate VAR decision

Shearer felt that the original decision should’ve stood, saying: “We were told about the high bar and sometimes winning the ball or getting a touch to the ball is not necessarily enough. If you wipe the player out, then also that can be deemed as a foul or as a penalty, and that’s what I thought it was.

“I thought once the referee had given it, then it was one of those where he was never going to overturn it, and I was really surprised that he did.”

However, Lineker saw it differently, countering: “I wasn’t so surprised. My argument would be on that one is that when you’ve got two players coming at each other, because obviously Jones’ touch was a little bit heavy, it became almost a 50/50 between the two, and you’ve got two players coming in opposite directions fairly quickly, fairly aggressively.

“I think the only way that can be a foul is the person that doesn’t get there first, and I thought once the ‘keeper gets there first, they’re both basically just colliding into each other.”

(Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images)

Sanchez may have had a lucky reprieve

With Jamie Carragher and Dermot Gallagher also having contrasting views on that particular incident, it’s evidently one which could easily have gone either way.

The TV replays showed one angle where Sanchez definitely touches the ball, but there are other vantage points which illustrate that he clattered into Jones with reckless force and could well have been punished.

As Shearer says, it’s one which appeared debatable enough for Brooks’ original decision to stand, depending on which way it had been given, but the VAR clearly thought otherwise.

What we’d add is that the ex-Newcastle striker makes a fair point about the threshold for awarding fouls where a player is ‘wiped out’, as the Liverpool midfielder was in this instance. Luckily there wasn’t any injury caused, but there easily could’ve been.

The debate will likely continue for another few days, but what’s an irrevocable fact is that the Reds now have 10 wins from 11 games under Arne Slot and sit proudly atop the Premier League.