Roy Hodgson admits the manner of Liverpool’s win over his Watford side left “a rather unpleasant taste in the mouth”.
The Reds earned their 10th successive Premier League victory with a 2-0 triumph over the Hornets at Anfield on Saturday afternoon.
Diogo Jota gave Liverpool the lead midway through the first half but the points were only made safe when Fabinho converted from the spot with a minute of normal time remaining.
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The penalty had been awarded for a foul on Jota by Juraj Kucka from a corner after referee Stuart Attwell, who had initially missed the incident, was asked to consult his pitchside monitor.
And an unhappy Hodgson said: “It’s the only sad moment for me today. VAR has done a lot of very good things since it has been instituted in English football, this year I think better than last year.
“But I still find it very hard to accept when a situation happens when literally nobody sees it. The referee didn’t see it, Jurgen was asking what was happening, I said I didn’t know, not one Liverpool player complained, but the game is stopped in the 88th minute and they are given the chance to make it 2-0 and that leaves a rather unpleasant taste in the mouth.
“Whether or not we would have got back is another matter. But there was a possibility we would get a chance and could take it. Two-nil was pretty harsh, had we lost it 4-0 with two goals in injury-time that would have been really harsh but that’s what the penalty did.
“I don’t think people outside the coaching fraternity understand that. The biggest myth I’ve ever come across in football is refereeing decisions don’t change games. The players weren’t ranting and raving afterwards, they were more bemused than anything else, wondering why the referee had given that.”
Watford had clear opportunities to score in each half, Kucka denied by Alisson Becker less than a minute before Jota’s opener while Joao Pedro shot wide shortly before the hour.
And Hodgson added: “We did a good job in keeping Liverpool at bay, we made life difficult for them and they didn’t find it easy to find a way through us and they weren’t peppering our goal. We created some chances of our own and if you want to get something here you need to convert your chances and we didn’t take one of the two we had.
“We knew we would be under some pressure from them because they are very good at what they do. We tried to prepare the players as best we could for what was coming their way. Unfortunately the danger from the cross (for the first goal) was something we were very much aware of and we didn’t defend that well and went a goal down.
