Jurgen Klopp was quietly furious with Martin Atkinson after the 51-year-old referee did his best to thwart Liverpool at St. Mary’s.
Southampton scored an early goal through Nathan Redmond after his shot from outside the box took a deflection off James Milner.
It looped over Alisson Becker and found the top right-hand corner, leaving the Brazilian stranded but Diogo Jota and Takumi Minamino combined well to open the Liverpool scoring 14 minutes later.
Joel Matip scored the winner in the 67th minute to ensure that the Premier League title race will go down to the last day of the season.
Wolves travel to Anfield while Aston Villa will visit the Etihad to hopefully hand Liverpool a massive title boost with Steven Gerrard, Philippe Coutinho and Danny Ings all able to write one of the most incredible Premier League scripts.
But it all could have been wrecked by one of the most obvious refereeing mistakes you will see from Atkinson and VAR did nothing to correct his error.
Just as well this is the last time Martin Atkinson will ever referee a Liverpool game https://t.co/mYKlW6WpIt
— Michael (@MikeMongie) May 17, 2022
Speaking after game, Klopp did little to hide his frustration with Atkinson and even pointed out that it’s not the first time that the referee has made an error like the Jota one leading to a costly goal against Liverpool.
In 2019, much like Jota, Divock Origi took a smart touch to take him away from Victor Lindelof but the Swede, much like Saints defender Lyanco on Jota, tackled through the Belgian.
Atkinson refused to give a free kick in October 2019 for what should have been a stonewall foul just as he refused to on Tuesday evening.
Skip to 2:28 to see the exact moment Origi was fouled before Marcus Rashford went up the other end and scored.
Speaking after Tuesday’s win over Saints, Klopp said: “For me, it was a foul.
“But we have been in a similar situation when Martin Atkinson has not given a foul on one of our players and (Marcus) Rashford scored a goal, it was exactly the same.
“Afterwards, he said yes we could have spotted that, but who cares?”
