I think Sakho gave Salah the opportunity to take a dive, and minimal contact these days is enough to invite that.

I was just as disappointed with the decision against PVA shortly before that, and the free kick ultimately led to the penalty.

I'm trying hard not to critisise the officials but my perception was the Oliver was itching to give that penalty.

The penalty and the second goal when we were chasing the game aside, we gave a very good Liverpool team a tough game.

Old, Ungifted and White

I don't disagree that there was some contact and from Oliver's angle it may have appeared an obvious impediment of a player with the ball under control, but from my POV it was a poor decision and a clear dive. In fairness we benefited from one against Fulham which could easily have been a penalty.

The red card I think was also questionable given Salah appeared to have lost control of the ball prior to contact so no goalscoring opportunity denied and then went over like an extra in Platoon, however in real time that's hard to call and I thought it was a Red from the Holmesdale (very far away I grant) at the time. I'd hope though that if it were contested a sensible observed would see that the contact didn't actually prevent a goalscoring opportunity and it wasn't dangerous or anything like that and so a yellow rather than a Red.

You should never be that tight in the area.
The attacker will use your body to help to turn himself and in this case Sakho was also showing him inside.
It was a pen in my opinion albeit a soft one.
Turn the tables and if that was us and we didn't get it we would be mighy unhappy

Having gone last night I thought they were clearly the better team, the pace at which they move the ball from side to side and the fact that they barely gave the ball away, even when under pressure. Despite that, we more than held our own & were unlucky to not score.

I unfortunately missed the penalty incident, mainly due to the absolute shambles that was the bars and catering in the Arthur. Got there at 7:10, queued up for one of the bars that had adverts for food plastered all over it, took 15 minutes to get to the front of the queue and was told no food, try next door. Stood in that queue for 15 minutes and it didn't move so was so hungry I went up at 35 mins into the first half and they still ran out everything apart from bloomin sausage rolls.

Anyway, back to the footy. Benteke just has no confidence whatsoever, that shot that pretty much ended up in the changing rooms, well you had to laugh to stop yourself from crying.

We've clearly tried to stop the hoof ball, we don't play with out and out wingers so we're not exactly floating loads of crosses in. It would make sense to me to have Ayew up top with Wilf as he'll chase everything and adds some pace. Sorloth is like a steam train, just sort of chugs around at a slow pace and struggles with any kind of acceleration.

Still, thought we played very well and no shame in that defeat. AWB was incredible, in spite of the red card.

I think you speak for many of us. Well said.

You know Steve Parish doesn't want VAR either?