Ex-Premier League referee wants major law change as controversial Salah footage emerges from Liverpool
Roberto Firmino’s second goal for Liverpool in their 5-0 thrashing of Watford showed a change in the offside law is needed.
That is the view of ex-Fifa and Premier League referee Keith Hackett, speaking exclusively to Football Insider about the incident.
Andy Robertson tried to play Mohamed Salah in behind the Watford defence but he was in an offside position.
Watford’s Craig Cathcart did not know that and intercepted the pass that came off Ben Foster into the path of Firmino.
“This was very similar to the incident with Kylian Mbappe in the Nations League final,” Hackett said after analysing the footage with Football Insider correspondent Connor Whitley.
“The outcome was the correct decision in law. I’m not querying the referee’s application of the law or the accurate delivery of the law.
“What I’m questioning is, in football, things look right and things look wrong.
“You’re in a halfway house here. The player is stood in an offside position but we’re aware he’s not offside, he’s not committed an offence.
“We know that the law doesn’t, and probably cannot, apply any psychological pressure that is put upon the defender. If the defender had not played the ball and Salah had gained it, he would have been offside.
“We could go back to the old law that says you can’t be offside if it’s played on by an opposition player but that’s still open to interpretation.
“It’s an aspect of law that needs to be reviewed and I think it needs to be changed.”
In other news, Kieran Maguire has tipped Liverpool to land a “huge” windfall after confirmed news.