Steven Gerrard slammed the ‘soft’ decision to award former club Liverpool a penalty against Aston Villa. The Reds legend suffered a narrow 1-0 defeat on his return to Anfield.
Mohamed Salah scored the winning goal from the penalty spot after being fouled by Tyrone Mings.
The Egyptian appeared to go down slightly easily after dribbling into the box and then getting ahead of the England defender.
Mings was furious with the decision but Salah thumped home the only goal of the game from the resultant spot-kick.
Villa were also aggrieved that they were not awarded a penalty of their own in added-time. Danny Ings was seemingly felled by Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson but their appeals were waved away.
Gerrard, who played a staggering 710 times for Liverpool, conceded that the hosts were the better side but bemoaned both penalty decisions.
The 41-year-old said: “I thought Liverpool were better in terms of general play. Their style was better than ours, but we’ve done so well to contain them for large periods.
“Ultimately the game has been decided by a penalty. There were two penalty incidents in the game, Liverpool got theirs – if you look at that one, Salah fouls Mings first.
“It’s always hard to take when you lose football matches. We knew it was going to be a containing job. You have to ride the first 20-25 minutes against sides like this. We finished the game stronger, with more belief and some good opportunities.
“If an arm goes anywhere near Alisson, it’s a foul. So why isn’t a foul given for Danny Ings? They are the questions I’d like answering, but I can’t answer them right now.
“In hindsight I should have thrown a bit more at it a bit earlier, but you have to be careful Liverpool don’t hit you for two, three or four. We’ve lost to a soft penalty because if you watch it properly, Tyrone’s been fouled first. The disappointing thing is that the referee hasn’t gone to look at it.
“In terms of commitment and application, I couldn’t be more pleased and proud. We have a tough game at Norwich in midweek. It’s an opportunity for us to go there, bounce back and get a positive result.”
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