Roy Hodgson expressed his frustration with refereeing decisions and law changes after Crystal Palace’s controversial defeat to Liverpool, telling TNT Sports in a charged interview that he won’t miss football once he retires.
Having been 1-0 up Palace were reduced to 10-men when Jordan Ayew received a soft second yellow card 75 minutes in. Moments later Mohamed Salah pulled the Reds level, and Harvey Elliott ensured all three points with an impressive late winner. Palace had earlier seen a stonewall penalty overturned by VAR because of a foul in the build-up, and took the lead through a spot-kick awarded via Stockley Park several minutes after referee Andy Madley had waved play on.
Even before the game Hodgson had been enduring a challenging spell, coming under pressure having picked up just four points from seven games and having made comments about the fans for which he later apologised.
Speaking after the Liverpool game, he made his disaffection clear. "We’re talking too much about the referees," he said. ç2The fact is I’ve been in football for a long time and the games like today make me realise that when the day comes to leave it behind I won’t be missing anything."
Asked what specifically he’s displeased with, Hodgson answered firmly: "The rules... refereeing. The referees, the incentives. I’m absolutely sick about the handball interpretations, sick about these yellow cards for time wasting, sick about player behaviour.
"All through the game we’re trying to do our job. The coaches who set this game up unbelievably well are trying to get a bit of advice out and every time they step forward to get even close to me the guy [the fourth official] is screaming at them to sit down. I’m sick of those.
"I don’t want to take positives from this game. I really don’t. Because I feel gutted, absolutely gutted, about the way this football game played out today. People make their judgements on my comments as they wish, but I have been in football a long time and do feel I’m entitled to give that sort of opinion. What I saw out there today and the way we lost this game I thought was a gutting experience."
Hodgson’s grievances didn’t just end with the officiating, however, as he criticised Virgil van Dijk for his part in Ayew's sending off. The Dutchman had kicked the ball against the Palace forward on the hour mark, leading to Ayew’s first yellow card.
"Van Dijk took the opportunity to get him the first yellow card by kicking the ball against him from a few yards away; that’s very disappointing. I think if you’re Liverpool Football Club you don’t need players of Van Dijk’s quality and status in the game to try and get a player a yellow card by just kicking a ball against him.
"This is another one of those real blows that we’ve got to take. We should be standing here, or at least I should be standing here, feeling really quite happy about a 1-1. Well done boys, you played well today. But I’ve got to accept that performance has been turned into a 1-2."
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