Sam Barrott will referee Liverpool's Premier League match against Brighton & Hove Albion on Sunday, marking his first time in charge of the Reds since a controversial penalty decision at Anfield earlier this season.
Barrott officiated Liverpool's 2-2 draw with Nottingham Forest in August, when he awarded the visitors a penalty after Neco Williams went down following a shot. Morgan Gibbs-White converted to give Forest the lead before Victor Munoz equalised late on.
The decision sparked frustration, with Alisson taking his anger out on a malfunctioning substitutions board, which denied the Reds from making a substitution around the time of the incident. Alisson was later fined £8,000 by the Football Association for his outburst.
KMI Panel Finds Error
The Premier League's Key Match Incidents (KMI) panel later determined that Barrott made an error in awarding the penalty. The panel suggested that Alisson's contact was 'inevitable' as a result of his momentum in attempting to save the ball.
"The panel felt that the referee's call of a penalty was incorrect on-field, 3:2. The contact from Alisson was inevitable as a consequence of his momentum in attempting to save the ball – the contact made was not reckless and below the threshold for a penalty," they said. "However, the non-intervention by the VAR was unanimously supported on the basis that it was not a clear and obvious error."
At the time, former referee Dermot Gallagher defended Barrott's decision, saying: "Alisson did the same tackle Man City against Matheus Nunes last season, he brought the player down and the referee gave the penalty. The same thing here: the referee gave the penalty. Both are penalties."
Sunday's Match Preview
The 34-year-old Yorkshire referee will be in the middle for the crunch match with the Seagulls, with Michael Oliver on video assistant referee duty at Stockley Park.
Brighton go into Sunday's game on the back of an impressive 5-0 win over rivals Crystal Palace. Liverpool are beginning to grind out results and play attractive football under Andoni Iraola.
Both sides have been in European action this week, with the Reds coming from behind to beat Villarreal 4-3 in a Champions League classic, while the Seagulls laboured to a goalless stalemate against Czech minnows Jablonec.
Brighton manager Fabian Hurzeler said of the Jablonec result: "We did not play on our highest level, Jablonec defended well and defend box well, good movement in transition. Overall not the result we wanted, but we have to keep going. If you play 0-0 then you didn't create enough, that's definitely something we have to get better at. We have to understand what it needs to play in this cup, understand we have to be brilliant at the basics. We weren't good at the basics today, that's something we have to improve."
