Everton forward Jack Grealish accused referee Darren England of being swayed by the fervent Anfield crowd during Liverpool’s 2–1 Merseyside derby victory on Saturday lunchtime, bemoaning the supposedly unprecedented decision to dish out a yellow card for the crime of taking a quick free kick.
Despite duking out a helter-skelter Champions League encounter with Atlético Madrid less than 65 hours earlier, Liverpool started the grudge match in rampant form. The increasingly imperious Ryan Gravenberch hooked the hosts in front after 10 minutes before Hugo Ekitiké doubled their advantage half an hour in.
Everton had scarcely been afforded a sniff up to that point before edging into the contest. Liverpool’s European excursions belatedly caught up with them as Idrissa Gana Gueye halved the deficit on 58 minutes with a thumping strike to set up a nervy conclusion.
Liverpool clung on to all three points but not without some controversial refereeing decisions—in the eyes of Grealish at least. The Manchester City loanee was particularly perturbed by the referee’s decision to twice stop Everton from taking a quick free kick, booking Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall after the second indiscretion.
“They were obviously trying to slow the game down at times, I’ve never seen a player in my whole life get booked for taking a quick free kick,” Grealish fumed postgame. “I don’t know where that rule has come in. Even the stoppage time, three minutes and one minute—I’ve never seen that in the Premier League in the last two or three years.
“There were frustrations with the referee. Sometimes you want to let the game go, I completely get that, but you can’t not give us something and then two seconds later one of their defenders goes down after getting touched in the back and he gives it.
“You can’t do that. You come to these stadiums and the crowd are on them, I feel that they [the referees] feel they have to give it. Kiernan is on four yellows now, and he got one for taking a quick free kick. We want to get the game going, we’re losing, and I’ve never heard of that in my life.”
England was taking charge of his first Merseyside derby on what was just his second career appointment at Anfield. However, the 39-year-old official from Doncaster had no issue enraging Liverpool fans on his previous Merseyside visit, infamously showing Gravenberch two yellow cards in the space of eight second-half minutes during a 1–1 draw with Crystal Palace last May.
Everton manager David Moyes was similarly unimpressed with the referee. “I think three minutes [of stoppage time] was very strange,” he lamented.
“We’ve been playing a couple of teams who’ve taken quick free kicks in games and they’ve caught us out, but today, every quick free kick had to be stopped and brought back for the whistle and then [Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall] got booking for it.”
