Steven Gerrard believes it would have been an injustice had Manchester United been denied the dramatic last-gasp penalty which gave them the 3-1 win over Paris St Germain and a place in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
Trailing 2-0 from the first-leg at Old Trafford, the Red Devils were leading 2-1 going into injury time on Wednesday night when a VAR-awarded spot-kick after Diogo Dalot’s shot struck Presnel Kimpembe on the arm allowed Marcus Rashford to fire in for a dramatic win on away goals.
There were split opinions on the award of the penalty with former Premier League official Peter Walton insisting there was no doubt, while Mark Clattenberg claimed it would not have been awarded in the domestic competition.
However, Rangers manager Gerrard, a former Liverpool captain, said: “The rules are the rules and we all have to expect that and respect it as well, because the rules are not going to change, certainly during the season.
“Listening to some of the officials commenting on it, is very interesting because they say the penalty decision was correct and the referee was correct.
“When I saw it initially I am thinking the PSG defender was very hard done by, it is very harsh on PSG but if you look at the rules it is the right decision.
“That is the reason why VAR is so important because without it, that probably gets missed and then Manchester United go out the cup which would have been nice from a Liverpool fan’s point of view but it would have been an injustice.”
There was a long delay inside the Parc des Princes as referee Damir Skomina consulted his pitch-side monitor before awarding the penalty but Gerrard believes the system more often than not arrives at the right decision which is why he would like to see it installed in Scottish football.
He said: “VAR gets a lot more things right and accurate which is great for the game. “It is not nice when you are on the wrong side of one, like PSG last night but I think it is only going to improve the game.
“Speaking about officials and the support we can give officials up here in Scotland I think VAR is certainly the way forward and hopefully one day we can get it into Scottish football.
“I think it will be a big help for everyone. It will be very welcomed up here, certainly by myself because I think the percentage of getting decisions right is close to perfection. It certainly makes sense.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel