- Brentford head coach Keith Andrews said Liverpool defender Jeremy Jacquet was “cute, clever” in the incident that got Yehor Yarmoliuk sent off.
- Referee John Brooks went to the VAR monitor and called the contact “a headbutting action” before showing Yarmoliuk a straight red card.
- Liverpool boss Andoni Iraola had a complaint of his own: he felt VAR should not have overturned a penalty his side were given before Brentford scored.
Andrews Points to Where Jacquet Was Walking
Keith Andrews did not argue with the red card. He did want people to look at what the player on the other side was doing. After Brentford’s 1-2 home defeat to Liverpool, the head coach said Jeremy Jacquet was “cute, clever” in the moments before Yehor Yarmoliuk was sent off.
“If you look at where Jacquet is walking, he’s not looking at the ball, is he? He’s walking in to Yarmo,” Andrews said in his post-match press conference. He added that Yarmoliuk “needs to do better, so I can understand why it was a red.”
Asked in a follow-up whether he thought Jacquet made the most of the contact, Andrews left the verdict to others. “We focus on us and our actions within that and you can make up your own mind,” he said.
The Red Card That Changed the Afternoon
Brentford had taken the lead at the Gtech Community Stadium through Keane Lewis-Potter. Then, in the eighth minute of first-half stoppage time, Ukraine international Yarmoliuk was shown a straight red card for catching Jacquet. Brooks went to the VAR monitor and described what he saw as “a headbutting action”.
Jacquet went down in the box, but Liverpool were not given a penalty as a corner on the left had not yet been delivered. Goals from Victor Munoz and Alexander Isak then turned the match in Liverpool’s favour.
Andrews conceded that the sending off changed the game. Brentford’s afternoon got worse when Vitaly Janelt was shown a second yellow card for bringing down Rio Ngumoha on the edge of the penalty area, which left the home side with nine men.
Andrews Defends a Young Player and Questions the Second Yellow
The Brentford boss was gentle with Yarmoliuk. “Yarmo is an amazing young man. I think we need to remember he is young, very young, and he is someone who we love working with and trying to develop. He will learn from it,” Andrews said.
He had more to say about Janelt. Andrews said he had watched both of the midfielder’s yellow cards again and likes his players “playing with emotion”, calling that “a big part of the way we play”. His complaint was aimed at the first booking.
“I like us to play on the edge and, when you do that and you feel like some decisions aren’t fair, that can be very, very difficult for our players. I feel it and it can become very, very frustrating. Our players aren’t robots,” he said.
Of the second yellow, Andrews said it came from Janelt’s honesty in chasing back to defend his own goal. “Most midfielders wouldn’t have been able to get back in to even challenge it,” he said. Then he put a question to himself: “Could there have been a bit more common sense with the second yellow? I think so.”
Iraola Has His Own Complaint About VAR
Liverpool left with the points but still had a grievance about the officiating. Iraola felt the officials were wrong to overturn a penalty his side had been awarded before Lewis-Potter’s opener, after Mac Allister went down under a challenge from Dango Ouattara.
The Liverpool head coach agreed that Ouattara touched the ball. His argument was about whether VAR should have stepped in at all, given the contact that followed the touch.
“I wouldn’t call it a penalty, live,” Iraola said. He added that he did not think “the VAR should intervene in that situation”.
He pointed to a precedent from earlier this season. Alisson was penalised for fouling Neco Williams in Liverpool’s 2-2 draw at Nottingham Forest in August, and the key match incidents panel agreed unanimously that the incident did not reach the threshold for a VAR check. Iraola said the way the Forest situation was explained to him “is exactly that one”.
Two Managers, Two Complaints About the Officials
The afternoon left both benches talking about refereeing. Andrews wants attention on Jacquet’s part in the Yarmoliuk incident and on a second yellow card he thought lacked common sense. Iraola wants to know why VAR stepped in on Mac Allister’s penalty when, in his reading, the same logic kept it out of the Forest game.
Andrews closed on the identity of his team. He called the spirit in the group “really, really special” and said he wants his players to keep playing with emotion.