Former EPL referee surprised that no penalty was awarded for Doku's foul

Former English Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher shared his perspective on the controversial incident in the closing stages of the Liverpool-Manchester City match, where Jeremy Doku crudely struck Alexis MacAllister with his foot, yet referee Michael Oliver refrained from awarding a penalty.

According to Gallagher, in this particular episode, the referee should have penalized Doku.

“From my point of view, it's easy to give the penalty”, – he said on Sky Sports' Ref Watch.

''If you give it, there won't be much talk about it. Doku gets the ball, there's no doubt about that - the argument is, does getting the ball negate a penalty? Well, we saw at Bournemouth [recently], no. VAR is sure Doku gets the ball, he's right, so he decides to go with the on-field decision of no penalty. It raises lots of dilemmas, I think there would be less argument if it was given as a penalty. I'm surprised there is a wide split. It's a big, big call. He made the decision based on what he saw".

It is worth recalling that the match concluded in a 1-1 draw, allowing Arsenal to claim the top spot in the Premier League.

Liverpool scored their only goal in the match from a penalty, while John Stones found the net for Manchester City.