Liverpool surprisingly stumbled at Goodison Park in the Premier League's Round 15 make-up match against Everton. The 2-2 draw prevented The Kop from widening the gap with Arsenal to 9 points. However, they are still firmly in the top position with a 7-point advantage over The Gunners.
The highlight of the match came in the final minutes when referee Michael Oliver showed red cards to Curtis Jones (Liverpool) and Abdoulaye Doucoure (Everton). Not only that, the away team's captain Arne Slot also received a red card along with assistant Sipke Hulshoff.
The incident started in the 90+8 minute after centre-back James Tarkowski scored the equaliser for Everton, with only 5 minutes of added time. After scoring, Tarkowski ran towards the home crowd to celebrate. Some fans jumped over the fence to run onto the pitch to join in the excitement. VAR then intervened to determine whether Tarkowski's goal was valid, causing the match to be extended a bit before officially ending.
After the match ended, Everton midfielder Doucoure ran into the Liverpool fans' stands to celebrate. Jones reacted to that and the two sides exchanged words. Immediately after that, the two sides rushed at each other to fight, the scuffle broke out on the field and the coaching staff of both sides had to intervene. Both Jones and Dourcoure received straight red cards.
Afterwards, the away team's captain Arne Slot also received a red card for shaking hands excessively with the referee.
"This is like their final, it was the same last year but the development in this year's match was a shock.
Doucoure clearly wanted to provoke the Liverpool fans and Jones thought it was the wrong thing to do. I think the referee lost control of the situation. I told him that after the game.
Today's match was like a big battle. My teammates and I are not the ones to solve it, it's the referee's problem. It's just a pity he couldn't control the situation" - Virgil van Dijk shared.
The red card means that Arne Slot will not be able to appear on the bench for the match against Wolves at Anfield this weekend. Meanwhile, Arsenal will have a relatively difficult away trip to Leicester's King Power Stadium.
The Gunners will be the first team to play on Saturday and they need to win to put pressure on Liverpool. After Kai Havertz's injury, Arsenal's attack is down to Raheem Sterling, Leandro Trossard and Ethan Nwaneri. If they can't overcome Leicester, perhaps Mikel Arteta should accept defeat in the race with Liverpool.
