Brendan Rodgers on VAR overruling Ayoze Perez's penalty against Everton: "You could hear the contact and Lee Mason was right on it. He has had another look at it, and the image he is looking at on the screen isn't the one that shows Perez got the touch and was clipped on the foot."
Wednesday 16 December 2020 23:21, UK
Brendan Rodgers questioned whether referees are being shown the right angles on the VAR review monitor after Ayoze Perez's penalty was overturned in Leicester's loss to Everton.
Referee Lee Mason initially awarded Leicester a spot kick after ruling Perez had been caught by Everton's Andre Gomes in the visiting penalty area with the hosts 2-0 down and seven minutes to go.
After being shown two replays by VAR official Darren England on the pitchside monitor, Mason overturned his decision. But Rodgers felt had Mason had the benefit of viewing other angles he would have stuck by his initial call - and said this was not the only time he felt referees had not been given the full picture in recent games.
He said: "I thought we should have had the penalty, that would have given us the last 10 minutes to push on, but we're very frustrated to have lost the game because otherwise we haven't given away a lot apart from the set-piece. Frustrating is the word.
"It was a surprise, down on the sidelines you could hear the contact and Lee Mason was right on it. He has had another look at it, and the image he is looking at on the screen isn't the one that shows Ayoze Perez got the touch and was clipped on the foot.
"Watching the Fulham-Liverpool game, the referee comes over and has a look but as soon as he makes his decision, the next image shown shows clearly it looks like a penalty for Fulham."
Only three of Leicester's eight Premier League wins this season have come at the King Power Stadium and their Everton defeat was their third in six matches on home soil this season, something Rodgers put down to a need to be better against defensively-minded teams - an issue the Foxes were criticised for under previous manager Claude Puel.
"We need to be better, there's no getting away from it," he said. "We need to have greater quality at home against teams who play deeper.
"The players give everything to the game, effort, mentality, we picked an aggressive team, but we have to show that little bit more invention and creativity. That's something we hope will continue as the season goes on and hopefully more players coming back will help us."
Having started the season flying but dropping off the boil in recent weeks, back-to-back wins lifted Everton to fifth at the end of the game at the King Power, within a point of their hosts and back in European contention.
When asked whether the victory had firmly reignited Everton's top-four hopes, manager Carlo Ancelotti said he would have settled for the campaign ending there and then - and the Toffees embarking on a Europa League tour next season.
"We are where we want to be," he said. "There is only a problem that if the season finished today, we would be satisfied. But the season is so long and we have to keep fighting to stay in this position.
"We were able to repeat the same performance we did against Chelsea. Solid defensively, when we had the opportunity we scored, and then we controlled the game quite well.
"We were well-organised, and it's a very important result. First of all, there is good form from all the players, the strikers Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Gylfi Sigurdsson are working hard, the back four are working well together, we don't push the full-backs on a lot because it's difficult then to find us out of balance."
