Cardiff City manager Neil Warnock has likened Mohamed Salah to Olympic diver Tom Daly after his side’s 2-0 defeat to Liverpool on Sunday.
Gini Wijnaldum opened the scoring for Liverpool in the second-half before James Milner sealed the win with a late penalty after Sean Morrisson fouled Salah in the box.
Former Barcelona and England forward Gary Lineker said that he couldn’t really see how you could think that it was not a penalty whereas Warnock said that he would have awarded the Egyptian forward a 9.9/10 for what he thought was a dive.
“I thought it was a soft one,” said Warnock after the game. “We gave him an opportunity, didn’t we? He’s got his arms round him and everything.
“But I think the end of it was a 9.9 Tom Daley job. I don’t think he could have got much higher off the diving board at the end of it.
“But I’m sure you’ll be saying Warnock is a moaning so and so again. I think just after half time, the tug on Morrison’s shirt which should have been spotted when, Graeme Souness says by the letter of the law it should be a penalty because it stops him making a clear header at goal.
“But nothing much said about that. We’ve not had any of those. He’s been pulled from pillar to post has Morrison and we’ve not had a penalty so we’re not going to start getting them getting now.
“It’s a fabulous Premier League title race because both sides are unbelievable. I felt we could get something but one slack bit of marking at a corner and that’s the quality they’ve got really.”
Meanwhile Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp said that the dry conditions of the pitch made it difficult for his side at times but that they showed good fight to keep the pressure on Manchester City in a razor close title race.
“It’s massive, it’s really massive. It was so difficult; if you say that before the game, everyone looks at you like you’re not allowed to say it. Going to Cardiff, you have to work there. We spoke a lot about this game, how special it is, how special the situation is for the opponent just to make clear what we had to do today.
“It was not a game for a little bit of playing around, it was a game for a 100 per cent fight, a battle of will again and who wants it more? In difficult circumstances; the circumstances were all a bit in favour of the team who doesn’t have the ball that often.
“The ball doesn’t roll like normally, everybody saw it. I can speak about it today because a few guys from Sky said they spoke about it as well, so then maybe it is allowed.
“It doesn’t make football easy when the pitch is dry. It is dangerous as well for injuries, but it doesn’t make it easy. We had the ball most of the time and still created three brilliant chances, which we probably usually finish off.
“We didn’t do that – it can happen – so then you have to stay patient, be calm, you need to stay 100 per cent focused on each set-piece because that’s what they go for and it’s pretty difficult.”
