Wolves boss Vitor Pereira believes Liverpool’s Ibrahima Konate should have been sent off during their game, and Arne Slot has admitted red-card fears led to the defender’s substitution.
Liverpool scraped through a close game against Wolves at the weekend, narrowly seeing out a 2-1 victory at Anfield. Yet the game could have turned out very differently, had Ibrahima Konate received a first-half red card.
Konate had picked up a yellow for a foul, and he could even have seen red seconds later, as he kicked the ball away from the players intending to take a free-kick.
The defender then arrived very late for a header later in the half, conceding a foul, but avoiding a second yellow. Liverpool boss Arne Slot decided to withdraw Konate from the contest at half-time.
Speaking after the match, Wolves boss Vitor Pereira insisted he thought Konate should have been sent off.
“What I can say?” Pereira asked. “What I say will not change [anything]. In my opinion, it was a second yellow card. But I’m not a referee.”
Slot then admitted that the danger of a second yellow was why he decided to substitute the centre-back.
“I took him off because of that. I saw him getting his first yellow – that for me was a soft yellow,” Slot said.
“If he got his second one for a shoulder push that would have again been a soft yellow so he would have been sent off for two soft yellows. I think the referee felt the same and that’s why he didn’t [book him again].”
Arsenal fans might point to inconsistencies between the incidents in Sunday’s match and their own recent experience with referees.
Officials have been quick to brandish second yellow cards to Arsenal players for kicking the ball away, and whilst Konate avoided a red he may have deserved against Wolves, Myles Lewis-Skelly was incorrectly sent off against the same opponent.
The Gunners at least managed to win that game, but they’ll feel frustrated Liverpool didn’t face the same obstacles to achieve their own win.