'Best view' - Liverpool VAR decision gets backing from ex-Premier League referee but Brentford boss disagrees

Ex-Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher feels Paul Tierney and VAR were correct not to send Wataru Endō off against Brentford on Sunday after a challenge on Christian Norgaard.

The pair slid in for a loose ball with both men making first contact with the ball before clattering into each other with studs raised. The Brentford man came off worse as Endō won the ball but caught the Bees player on his shin. Brentford boss Thomas Frank felt it should have been a red card based on the precedent set by similar incidents this season.

"Back in the day there would be a lot less red cards," he said after Mohammed Salah's double and Diogo Jota's fine finish handed Liverpool a 3-0 win at Anfield. "I think in this situation back in the day, it is never a red card. I think in the football we play, I think the referee missed a foul on a yellow card on the pitch. With VAR it is a different situation but even with VAR I think we get it wrong.

"It shouldn't be a red card but, I will come back to it, with this slow image we get today and you see a clear foot on the leg and the footage I have, four bloody marks on Christian's legs, then it is some contact with extensive force. So he got the ball with enough force to make the mark.

"It was like Curtis Jones against Tottenham and Marcus Rashford against Copenhagen and there are probably more, Josh DaSilva was one against Newcastle a couple of years ago. With that in mind, then it is a red card. I think all four shouldn't be but the way it is now, it should be a red card."

Tierney did not give a foul for the challenge as he stood in close proximity to the tackle and allowed play to continue. Gallagher felt it should have been a foul but says the referee was in a good place to make a decision and backed the call to not send the Liverpool man off.

"I don't think it was a red card," he said. "If it's a foul, and the referee didn't think it was a foul, he was low and going for the ball. The referee had the best view and he knew the intensity of the tackle."