Gary Neville follows up on 'embarrassing' VAR complaint rant that 'Liverpool and Arsenal started'

Gary Neville has doubled down on recent comments he made about Premier League clubs writing to the PGMOL with complaints about officiating standards.

West Ham manager David Moyes expressed his frustration after Sheffield United were awarded a controversial penalty against his side on Sunday. He said the league has reached a stage where "we're settling for a level of officiating where we're all shrugging our shoulders."

Nottingham Forest have also contacted the PGMOL after Ivan Toney's free-kick divided a lot of fans during their match against Brentford. The 27-year-old — who featured in his first game since serving an eight-month ban for betting breaches — moved the vanishing foam and repositioned the ball before taking his free-kick, which found the back of the net and helped Brentford beat Forest 3-2.

The East Midlands side have written to both the Premier League and the PGMOL in search for answers over whether Toney's actions were against the rules. Neville took to Twitter on Sunday evening to weigh in on the rising amount of complaints to the PGMOL and has suggested the 'precedent' started with Liverpool and Arsenal.

"Clubs writing to the PGMOL is embarrassing! Liverpool and Arsenal started it and set the precedent of this nonsense."

The Sky Sports pundit followed up with another post on the same day, saying it is 'unnecessary' for clubs to make it public knowledge that they have contacted the referees' body. "The refs should be doing better and are under enormous pressure at the moment. It’s in the clubs' interests to work with them to make them improve. This public posturing is unnecessary," Neville continued.

"Speak to them and email them to gain clarification in private but they don’t have to 'announce' they’ve written to the PGMOL. It’s not going to change the decision and it’s not going to help anyone! It just adds to the pile on."

Liverpool's only league defeat this season so far came as a result of a major VAR failure against Tottenham Hotspur. Luis Díaz's goal was incorrectly ruled offside and the PGMOL admitted it should have stood and 'significant human error' was to blame. Liverpool requested for the audio during the decision process to be released, which revealed VAR's embarrassing misjudgement of the on-pitch decision.