Why Brentford-Liverpool had a different referee after half-time | OneFootball

Liverpool’s Premier League match at Brentford saw a change of referee at half-time after Simon Hooper picked up an injury.

The referee was replaced by the fourth official Tim Robinson for the second half at the Brentford Community Stadium.

Hooper suffered a hamstring injury during the first half of the game, TNT Sport reported.

Robinson then awarded Brentford a penalty after Virgil van Dijk was judged to have made contact Dango Ouattara on the line, with VAR Chris Kavanagh instructing an overturn after Robinson gave a free-kick.

The Premier League Match Centre said: “After VAR review, the referee overturned the original decision of free-kick to Brentford.”

Brentford led Liverpool 2-1 at the break after an incident-packed first half in west London.

Kevin Schade doubled Brentford’s lead on the counter-attack, around a minute after referee Hooper had waved away appeals for a penalty when Cody Gakpo went down under the challenge of Nathan Collins in the box.

The VAR Kavanagh agreed with Hooper’s on-field decision and a statement confirmed: “The referee’s call of no penalty to Liverpool was checked and confirmed by VAR – with it deemed that there was no foul by Collins on Gakpo.”

Liverpool’s Milos Kerkez pulled one back in the fifth minute of first-half stoppage time. A minimum of three minutes had been shown.

The restart following half-time was delayed so Robinson could warm up during the interval.

The Liverpool and Brentford players then emerged onto the pitch before the officials, with Hooper replacing Robinson on the touchline.

With two minutes remaining Salah scored his first goal in seven matches. But the equaliser would not come and Liverpool fell to a fourth Premier League defeat in a row.