'Never in my whole life': Jack Grealish stunned by refereeing decision in Merseyside derby | OneFootball

Everton loanee and manager David Moyes both criticise officiating in narrow defeat at Anfield

Jack Grealish was left furious with the officiating during Everton’s narrow Merseyside derby loss to Liverpool, with one decision in particular causing bemusement.

Liverpool led 2-0 inside half an hour thanks to a wonderful Ryan Gravenberch effort and further goal from Hugo Ekitike, but struggled thereafter as Grealish inspired a second-half Everton fightback, playing a key role in Idrissa Gana Gueye’s emphatic finish that set up a grandstand finale to a pulsating derby contest.

The Toffees fell just short in the end as their dire record - as well as that of their manager - at Anfield continued, but both Grealish and Moyes were left perplexed at some of the decisions made by referee Darren England.

That included Everton midfielder Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall appearing to be booked in the second half for taking a free-kick too quickly.

“I’ve never seen a player in my whole life get booked for taking a quick free-kick,” Grealish bemoaned to TNT Sports. “I don’t know where that rule has come in.

“Even the stoppage time, three minutes and one minute. Come on, I’ve never seen that in the Premier League in the last two or three years.

“Of course [there were frustrations with the referee]. I get sometimes you want to let the game go, but you can’t not give something for us and then two seconds later one of their defenders gets touched in the back, he goes down and then he gives it.

“You can’t do that. I get it, sometimes you come to these stadiums and the crowd are on you. Sometimes I think they feel like they’ve got to give it.

“Kiernan I think is on four yellows, he gets one today for taking a quick free-kick. We want to get the game going. We’re losing. I’ve never heard of that in my life.”

Moyes expressed similar frustration with the officials as he tied the great Sir Bobby Robson’s mark for the most visits to Anfield (23) without a win as a manager.

“I’ve been here so many times,” he said. “I don’t want to sound like an old fart who is coming on here all the time saying the same things, but I found only three minutes (of stoppage time) amazing at the end of the second half.

“We wanted to play quickly, I’ve seen a lot of teams score from quick free-kicks but today we couldn’t do anything quickly because we had to wait for the referee’s whistle all the time.

“I found some of the decisions really strange, but we’ve come to get used to that here and I think everybody is quite aware of that. Certainly everybody who is connected with Everton.”