You just knew it was going to be a talking point.
Even though we scored pretty soon after the whole thing, so it made the whole thing somewhat irrelevant in my eyes, there will be some people that will be looking at the penalty incident and think that it had a major impact on the game and could have cost us three points rather than the one we got.
Fulham put in arguably one of their better performances of the season, not just in terms of the result, but how they played as well, as they picked up a 1-1 draw with champions Liverpool, but there was plenty of controversy during the game.
With the scores tied at 0-0 Fulham were on the verge of being awarded a penalty for a Fabinho challenge on Ivan Cavaleiro, only for referee Andre Mariner to pull off the rare move of going to the VAR monitor and sticking with his original decision after consulting the footage.
And speaking after the game, Fulham reporter Peter Rutzler maintained that the decision not to give the spot-kick loomed over what was a remarkable game for the Whites:
Penalty was all the more cruel considering how solid Fulham were — against the champions. Another strong defensive display, led by Andersen who was a rock alongside Adarabioyo. Areola on hand to deny everything going that made it through. Deserved a clean sheet, really. #FFC
— Peter Rutzler (@peterrutzler) December 13, 2020
Will we stay up?
Yes
No
As I mentioned earlier, I think the turnaround from that decision to our goal was so short that it wouldn’t have made an immediate difference. The only thing that could have been different is if Fabinho was booked for his part in it and that made him easier to attack during the game knowing he couldn’t fly into many more tackles.
Either way, I’m just so happy with the point that I’m not going to let something like this decision get me down.
What about you? Do you think that the decision not to award a penalty was a mistake by the referee?