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Photo by Jess Hornby/Getty Images
Liverpool Women lost 1-0 to Everton last weekend due to an objective officiating failure but their own lack of goals was also concerning.
Most perceived officiating failures are, at the end of the day, subjective. Most failures, as clear and obvious as they might seem to many, are at least defensible to some. Last season, though, Liverpool’s men’s team were victims of the most egregious officiating failing of the Premier League season.
Rather than subjective, the failure was objective. Luis Diaz was onside. Luis Diaz scored a goal that was ruled offside. Video Assistant Referee took another look and, due to an error in communication, the goal was wrongly upheld as disallowed due to being offside. Which it measurably wasn’t.
Over the past weekend, Liverpool’s women’s team were similarly let down by a failure of officiating that was objective rather than subjective when Everton were awarded a penalty for a foul committed by the Reds outside of the penalty area. Everton converted on it and won the game 1-0.
“We should never have been put in that position we were put in,” manager Matt Beard said as he prepares his side to try to bounce back against Newcastle. “I feel let down for the players because they put so much into that game; I think you could see the commitment from the players.
“As I said after the match, I just don’t know what to say because it changed the game. I think they had six touches in our penalty box the whole game, but I can’t change it. I’m just desperately disappointed for our supporters, we wanted to win that for them and we had spoken about it all week.”
As cruel a blow as it was to a Liverpool side that have so far in 2024-25 failed to live up to last season’s promise, though, the Reds must also look to their own failings—Everton’s goal may have been gifted via an objective failure of officiating, but even without it Liverpool wouldn’t have won.
The Reds held 65% possession, completed nearly twice as many passes, and put six shots on target but in the end could not convert their dominant play or their chances. They may have been the better side, and the penalty was a clear error, but Liverpool still ended the day shut out.
“We’ve got to do better in the final third and it’s costing us at this moment,” Beard added. “We’ve got to start making better decisions. We also need to get to the bottom of our injury situation. We haven’t got that consistency of selection we had last season, and it does have an effect on the field.”
