Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has slammed the "ridiculous" and "insane" decision to rule out Harvey Elliott's goal against Burnley.
Despite their first-half dominance at Turf Moor, the Reds led only 1-0 in their bid to return to the Premier League summit on Boxing Day following Darwin Nunez's first club goal for 13 games, with Cody Gakpo seeing an effort ruled out for a foul by Nunez on Charlie Taylor.
Liverpool again thought they had scored the all-important second goal 10 minutes after the break, when Elliott smartly side-footed into the bottom corner after being teed up by Ryan Gravenberch.
However, the goal was checked by the VAR and eventually chalked off after referee Paul Tierney was advised to consult the pitch-side monitor, with Mohamed Salah shown to be beyond the last defender and deemed to be active near the eyeline of Burnley goalkeeper James Trafford when Elliott struck the ball.
However, a layer of controversy was added to the decision when replays appeared to show that Salah had been pushed into the offside position by defender Jordan Beyer, while Trafford appeared to be moving the other way and would not have saved Elliott's shot regardless.
“Only somebody who never played football could make this an offside call,” Klopp told Amazon Prime Video after the game as he was shown footage of the incident.
"They will tell us in the end, it's an offside situation, whatever. He [the referee] looked at it five minutes and it's insane. You see that... honestly.
"That's a ridiculous decision."
The controversial call ultimately did not cost Liverpool, who survived a second-half scare against a galvanised Burnley outfit as the fit-again Diogo Jota came off the bench to wrap up an important victory in the 90th minute.
Klopp's men will now top the table for at least 48 hours, with title rivals Arsenal hosting West Ham in a London derby at the Emirates Stadium on Thursday night.
