Jack Grealish took his on-field protests to his post-match interview as he took the opportunity to vent over the referee’s decisions, citing ‘bias’ towards Liverpool.
Liverpool raced to a dominant 2-0 lead over Everton but invited them back into the match in the second half, setting up a needlessly nervy finish as David Moyes’ side pushed for an equaliser.
Darren England was the referee and awarded 11 fouls to Liverpool and 10 to Everton; he also showed two yellow cards to Slot’s men and three to Moyes’.
There were grievances from Grealish and Moyes at full time, however, as they both confronted the officials over the three minutes of stoppage time and what they deemed inconsistent decisions.
“We always had that belief that we could do it (equalise),” Grealish told TNT Sports. “We got the one back, great finish from Idrissa, but we couldn’t get that last goal.
“I’ve never seen a player in my whole life get booked for taking a quick free-kick”
Jack Grealish wasn’t happy with the officiating against Liverpool ?
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“It was a bit frustrating in the second half, I think they were obviously trying to slow the game down at times.
“I’ve never seen a player in my life get booked for taking a quick free-kick, I don’t know where that rule’s come in. Even the stoppage time, was it three minutes? Come on. I’ve never seen that in the Premier League in the last two, three years.
“Of course. Listen, I get sometimes you want to let the game go, I completely get that, but you can’t not give something for us then two seconds later one of their defenders gets touched in the back, goes down, and he gives it. You can’t do that.
“I get it. Sometimes you come to these stadiums and the crowd are on you, and I think they feel a bit like they’ve got to give it.
“But Kiernan now is on I think four yellows, I think he’s got one more [until a suspension] and he gets a yellow today for taking a quick free-kick.
“We want to get the game going, we’re losing the game. I’ve never heard of that in my life.”
Quite the statement from a player who has sought to draw free-kicks his entire career.
And Grealish was not alone in his suggestion of bias towards Liverpool from the referee – who, by the way, was VAR when Luis Diaz‘s goal at Tottenham was incorrectly disallowed – with Moyes getting in on the act.
“I’ve been here so many times and I don’t want to sound like an old fart who’s coming on here all the time saying the same things, but I found only three minutes amazing at the end of the second half,” Moyes said.
“We wanted to play quite quickly, I’ve seen lots of teams score from quick free-kicks, but today we couldn’t do any quickly because we had to wait for the referee’s whistle all the time.
“I found some of the decisions really strange, but we’ve come to get used to that here. I think everybody’s quite aware of that, certainly everyone who’s connected to Everton are.”