Everton manager Sean Dyche was left flabbergasted by the referee's decision to not send off Ibrahima Konate during his side's 2-0 loss to Liverpool.
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Konate fouled Everton's BetoIncident reviewed by refereeDecided not to give second cardWHAT HAPPENED?
Konate was booked early in the second half while the score was still level. He then grabbed Everton's Beto as he attempted to run onto a pass. The infringement was reviewed by VAR and referee Craig Pawson went to check it on the pitch-side monitor, but opted against showing a second yellow card. With Everton already a man down due to Ashley Young's dismissal in the first half, the teams would have been numerically even had Konate been shown a card.
AdvertisementGettyTHE BIGGER PICTURE
With the score still at 0-0, Konate was soon taken off by coach Jurgen Klopp, who went on to admit that his team were lucky to keep 11 men on the field, telling : "Yeah, we took him off because of that, of course… Yeah, we got lucky, probably."
To add insult to injury, Liverpool went on to take the lead through a Mohamed Salah penalty after 75 minutes and the Egypt star then netted another deep into stoppage time.
WHAT THEY SAID
Asked in a press conference if Konate should have been sent off, Dyche said: "I don't know about you but I'm getting bored of all this running over to the TV, because we all know what's going to happen, don't we? I don't know what the strike rate is, but it's probably like a 99 percent chance that the referee's going to give whatever he's been told in his ear.
"They're talking about speeding the game up, why not just get on with it? There's someone in that office with 47 views. I have no clue. I've asked the referee, he said he didn't feel it was a bookable offence and he felt that straight away. I don't know what it is then.
"I'd like to think there are a lot of fair-minded people in football and I think people here today would be stunned that that's not a second yellow. Their manager, fair play to him, he took him off as quick as he could. He's realised, he's thought: 'Got away with that', I imagine."
Getty ImagesWHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
Liverpool's next match is against Toulouse in the Europa League on Thursday. Everton, meanwhile, will face West Ham on October 29.