“You have to dive.” Liverpool coach vents his anger at the refereeing after the loss to Arsenal

- Spanish coach Andoni Iraola said that he may have to start instructing his players to “act” (deliberately fall) in order to win penalty kicks, after Swedish striker Alexander Isak was denied a penalty kick despite having his shirt pulled, as the player chose to remain on his feet in the match that his team lost to Arsenal 1-0. The Gunners achieved their first victory at Anfield in 14 years, and rose to the top of the English Premier League thanks to a goal scored by Kai Havertz.

Frustration prevailed among Liverpool's ranks due to two refereeing decisions against the team regarding two penalty kicks. The first was when Cody Jacobo fell as a result of an intervention by Christos Tzoulis, and the second was when Jurren Temper pulled Isaac inside the penalty area, while the latter was trying to play the ball with his head. Isaac remained on his feet despite being stretched, and did not even appear to be calling for a penalty kick.

However, in comments he made after the match, Liverpool coach Iraola told the BBC: “There was an obvious tug on the shirt. Alex was right in front of him, and he was going to head the ball in front of goal, but he was unable to do so because of the tug on his shirt.

I don't understand why they didn't give a violation; Maybe because the player did not fall to the ground.” The Spanish coach added: “I think that Gakpo’s shot was not a penalty kick, but in Alex’s shot, the player was about to head the ball in front of the goalkeeper, so the opponent pulled his shirt.

"You have to dive; if you don't dive, they won't call the foul," Iraola continued. Iraola added in statements to Sky Sports about Isaac: “That is the problem we face in the game; he does not resort to acting or falling to the ground.

“And the fact that you are asking me if he should have fallen... If he had fallen to the ground, the referee would have awarded a 100% penalty.”

The Spanish coach continued: “The coach should now tell Alex: ‘Next time you have to fall to the ground, otherwise they will not call the foul.’” For his part, Virgil van Dijk, Liverpool's captain, supported his coach's statements, indicating that he believed that the intervention on Isaac was a "clear penalty kick."

Van Dijk said: “I watched the footage again, and I saw instances where penalties were awarded. Why does he [Isaac] have to complain when there are so many cameras?

In the end, the decision was not counted, and unfortunately we lost the match. So, congratulations to Arsenal.” The hosts came closest to scoring when Florian Wirtz hit the crossbar, but they only had a few clear scoring chances throughout the match.

“We put them under pressure, forced them back into their penalty area, trapped them there, but we lacked the clarity to deal with those situations better,” Iraola said. He added: “I decided to finish the match with Rio [Ngumoha] and Victor [Muñoz], and I also brought in Dom [Soboslai], to see if we could score with a shot from outside the penalty area, or in various ways.

We had many set pieces, but we did not succeed in scoring from them, and they also performed very well defensively in the second half.”