The Premier League have confirmed who will referee Liverpool’s clash against Bournemouth this weekend.
The Reds travel to the south coast to face the Cherries on Saturday for their next top-flight clash. Liverpool go into the fixture on the back of an emphatic 7-0 home win over bitter-rivals Manchester United on Sunday.
That left Jurgen Klopp's in fifth place in the Premier League table and breathing down the necks of fourth-placed Tottenham Hotspur going into the Bournemouth encounter. And now the Premier League have confirmed who will be the referee for the match.
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John Brooks will take charge of the game at the Vitality Stadium. He will be assisted by Darren Cann and Matthew Wilkes, with Tony Harrington on VAR duty.
In February, Brooks was taken off VAR duty for the Merseyside derby after wrongly disallowing a goal in Crystal Palace's draw with Brighton a couple of days earlier. In the same weekend, Lee Mason, the VAR in Arsenal’s 1-1 draw against Brentford, did not draw the offside lines to check Christian Norgaard’s position before he crossed for Ivan Toney to score in the 74th minute.
These led to the Premier League releasing a statement condemning the officiating and urging the PGMOL to review and explain several incidents. PGMOL then also released a statement stating that chief Howard Webb had made contact with the affected clubs.
Brooks was on refereeing duty on Sunday for Nottingham Forest’s clash with Everton. The game finished in a 2-2 draw, and Forest boss Steve Copper was not happy with some of the decisions made by Brooks.
“I’m disappointed with the ref, I’ll be honest. He had too much impact on the game, and because of the performance there were some defining moments,” Cooper told the Nottingham Post after the match.
“The key one for me was the decision that ended up with the ball going into the box for the second goal. We should have done better with it, but the ball shouldn’t have gone in there in the first place because it was a foul against Morgan.
“And when (James) Tarkowski gets booked for a foul on (Renan) Lodi - which was fine, yellow card, no problem - he’s blown up when Brennan was in a one-v-one. That cannot happen at this level.
“It’s not good for the ref either, because he’s going to be gutted with that and it will probably be looked at. It was a pity really that things like that affect games.”
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