Liverpool fans are not best pleased after Anthony Taylor and Paul Tierney were named as officials for this weekend's massive match with Manchester City.
City and Liverpool are currently neck-and-neck at the top of the Premier League table with the Blues leading the way by just a point with eight games of the campaign remaining. As a result, whoever wins Sunday's bout at the Etihad will take the ascendency in the title race for the last few weeks of the season.
The stakes couldn't be higher and it looks likely to be yet another classic between the two best teams in the country. However, what seems to be a large chunk of Liverpool fans have been left engaged in the build-up after the Premier League confirmed who would be officiating the match.
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Anthony Taylor, who is from Wythenshawe in Manchester, will be the man in the middle for the match while Paul Tierney, who is actually from Wigan but the town just about falls inside of Greater Manchester's border, has been selected as the VAR official. As both Taylor and Tierney are from the Greater Manchester region, Liverpool fans on social media have been left up in arms and have claimed it's unfair to have them in charge of a match between a team from Manchester against them.
Taylor has refereed Liverpool 47 times with the Reds coming out victorious on 27 occasions and losing just nine times. Only two red cards have been shown against them in those games. He has been in charge of City vs Liverpool three times before, with Pep Guardiola's side winning on two occasions, and the other a 2-2 draw in 2013.
He has also refereed Liverpool and Manchester United fixtures on three occasions, two of which Liverpool won 5-0 and 4-2, while the other was drawn 0-0.
Meanwhile, Liverpool have won 10 of the 18 games Tierney has refereed them in and lost just twice. One game each came against the Manchester clubs and both ended in draws.
Despite there being no sign of bias against them in those results, Liverpool fans have pointed towards decisions that went against them in some of those games as evidence as they fumed against the appointments.
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