There were a lot of reasons for Newcastle United fans to be upset yesterday but the shocking bias from Jamie Carragher on Sky Sports has to be right up there.
We all know that football can be a divisive topic with people looking at every incident in every game through a slightly different lens, but Jamie Carragher‘s view on Virgil Van Dijk’s red card yesterday was blatant bias.
Liverpool were lucky to not already be down to ten-men against Newcastle before Virgil Van Dijk’s red card when the referee John Brooks bottled the decision to show Trent Alexander-Arnold a second yellow just moments after he picked up his first.
Van Dijk denied Alexander Isak a clear goalscoring opportunity
Newcastle got their one-man advantage before the half hour mark when Van Dijk felled Alexander Isak just outside of the area earning an immediate red card from Brooks. There was no long drawn-out decision making from VAR, Brooks wasted no time brandishing the card. They did spend a bit of time checking the decision after the fact, but VAR agreed it was the right call.
It was a denial of a clear goalscoring opportunity and by the letter of the law, he has to go. Multiple replays showed that Van Dijk went through Alexander Isak to get the ball, so it was a clear foul. Jamie Carragher agreed with that much, but the former Liverpool star doesn’t believe it was a red card.
Speaking on Sky Sports, Carragher said: “Virgil van Dijk does a lot wrong here. He’s lazy initially in terms of not getting across, the decision to make a challenge is ill-advised – but I still don’t believe that’s a red card. I don’t think there’s enough there. How do you know that’s a goalscoring opportunity?”
“I think he’s lazy, he should get over earlier, he should not really make the challenge but that is not a red card.”
Excuse me? How do you know that’s a clear goalscoring opportunity? It’s a perfectly weighted through-ball by Anthony Gordon, Isak just needed to shield it from Van Dijk, he doesn’t even need to touch it, and he’s through one-on-one with Allison.
Shay Given tried to clear it up for Carragher
Add to that fact that it’s Alexander ‘ruddy’ Isak, then that is definitely a clear goalscoring opportunity.
Shay Given was on pundit duty alongside Carragher and he tried to explain the situation to Carragher but he wouldn’t budge. Andros Townsend, the third man in the studio sat on the fence being as much use as he was for Everton.
For me it’s almost disrespectful to Isak to imply that he wouldn’t have at least tested Allison if he’d been allowed to stay on his feet. A poor take from Carragher. Or … am I being just as biased as him? Nah, it was poor take. Definitely.
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