On 23 December, the match of the 18th round of the championship of England between Liverpool and Arsenal took place. The game ended with the score 1:1.
In the 18th minute Mohamed Salah pushed the ball into the penalty area of the "canoniers". The visitors' midfielder Edegaard stopped the ball's movement with his hand down. The head referee did not record the offence and did not award a penalty, with the referees on VAR not intervening in the episode.
After the game, Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp commented on the draw and also assessed the episode:
"Edegor's play with his hand? The penalty situation is a strange one, I don't know if the referee saw it, but you look at it ... I don't see how you can say it's not a penalty. Apart from the injuries, first of all I have to say thank you to Anfield. It was unbelievable.
Arsenal had a good start. They play beautifully on standards. We almost made an artificial offside but unfortunately it didn't work.
After conceding the goal we really found a way to get into the game. After the break we should have scored again. Would we have won if we had led 2:1? I do not know, but we should have scored. We had chances, there was a lot of pressure. "Arsenal are a really exceptional team, but for those 20 minutes at the end we smashed them a bit. We felt they were shaky and we should have capitalised on that," Klopp is quoted as saying by the BBC.
В PGMOL подтвердили, что состоялся контакт с рукой Эдегора, но поскольку она была использована для сохранения баланса и двигалась к его телу, это не было признано нарушением правил по игре рукой.
Издание The Athletic также обратилось в руководящий судейский орган за разъяснениями и получило ответ, что, по мнению VAR, рука Эдегора возвращалась назад к телу, когда тот терял равновесие