Mohamed Salah was lucky to stay on the pitch during Liverpool\u2019s surprising defeat to Brentford at the Gtech Community Stadium.<\/p>\n
Former PGMOL chief and ex-FIFA referee Keith Hackett told Football Insider that referee Simon Hooper faced a tough decision after Salah\u2019s challenge on Kevin Schade. The tackle earned Salah a yellow card, and shortly after, Virgil van Dijk conceded a controversial penalty, which Igor Thiago converted on the hour mark.<\/p>\n
Brentford had already taken a commanding lead in the first half through goals from Dango Ouattara, Schade, and Milos Kerkez. Salah scored a late strike in stoppage time, but Brentford\u2019s penalty effectively secured the win.<\/p>\n
Liverpool\u2019s struggles continue to raise questions for manager Arne Slot, with the Reds losing five of their last six matches, only managing a Champions League win against Eintracht Frankfurt during that period. Van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate have come under criticism for shaky defending, which Brentford exploited to secure an unexpected victory.<\/p>\n
Hackett noted that Salah could have faced a harsher punishment, given that he landed on the top of Schade\u2019s foot in the 57th minute. While some fans felt a yellow card was insufficient, the former referee explained that the rules clearly dictate that only excessive force endangering a player warrants a red card.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a vulnerable area for a player,\u201d Hackett said. \u201cReferees have to protect players and act decisively. The law favors a yellow over a red unless the challenge uses excessive force. In Salah\u2019s case, a yellow card was the minimum appropriate decision.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mohamed Salah was lucky to stay on the pitch during Liverpool\u2019s surprising defeat to Brentford at the Gtech Community Stadium. Former PGMOL chief and ex-FIFA referee Keith Hackett told Football Insider that referee Simon Hooper faced a tough decision after Salah\u2019s challenge on Kevin Schade. The tackle earned Salah a yellow card, and shortly after, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":53201,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Mohamed-Salah-Kevin-Schade.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53202,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53200\/revisions\/53202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/53201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}