Gary Lineker rages at ‘Silly Law’ as MOTD air footage of Everton player incident v Liverpool
Gary Lineker slammed the handball rule after Everton defender Michael Keane gave away a penalty against Liverpool on Saturday.
Luis Diaz’s cross clearly struck Keane’s outstretched forearm early in the second half, allowing Mohamed Salah to step up to the penalty spot and score the first of his two goals in Liverpool’s 2-0 win at Anfield.
Referee Craig Pawson initially gave a corner kick, leading to VAR intervening ahead of Liverpool’s spot kick being awarded.
Micah Richards doesn’t like the handball law but can see why it was given while Lineker suggests a change needs to take place to stop penalties such as this being awarded.
Speaking on Match of the Day on Saturday (21 October), Richards said: “The penalty with Keane, I’ve been in this position.
“I don’t like to give it but his arm is outside his silhouette – it’s the right decision.”
Lineker said: “It’s a silly law we’ve got so you can understand why he’s given it but they need to do something about that.”
It’s handball
If there’s a decision we don’t have much of an issue with, it was the decision to award Liverpool a penalty kick for that handball by Keane.
You could argue Ashley Young’s two yellow cards were soft and you could definitely argue that Ibrahima Konaté should have been sent off for the Reds.
However, you cannot really debate about the fact that Keane stuck out his arm when he didn’t need to and his arm then clearly stopped what could have been a goalscoring opportunity for Liverpool.
It was a penalty, no questions asked.
We cannot go continuously calling for handball laws to be changed because this is what has made it all so confusing in recent years.
The law has been all over the place and now we finally have something that finally resembles a solid law, people like Lineker are calling for a change.
Keane was stupid to do what he did in the box and we deserved to be punished for that one.
