Why was Luis Diaz's goal disallowed in Tottenham vs Liverpool clash? VAR expert reveals exact reason as incredible human error claim emerges

VAR expert Dale Johnson has revealed that a miscommunication between the officials led to Luis Diaz's goal for Liverpool getting ruled out for offside against Tottenham on Saturday (September 30).

The ESPN journalist said that the VAR was unaware of the linesman flagging the goal offside and only communicated with a 'check complete' to restart play. However, the referee was aware of the linesman flagging the goal offside, so he awarded the free-kick to Tottenham.

Johnson added that it was too late for the officials to stop play and award the goal by the time VAR had realised the mistake and communicated the issue. He posted on X (formerly Twitter):

"Ok, here's the nuts and bolts. This is what happened with the Luis Diaz' goal' which Liverpool had disallowed vs. Tottenham. There will be a deeper dive in the Monday VAR thread, but in simple terms the VAR took the wrong onfield decision - it led to the goal being disallowed.

"So the VAR, Darren England, checked offside thinking the onfield decision was 'goal'. It was a quick offside check because it was clear Diaz was onside, so he told the referee 'check complete'. In telling the ref 'check complete' he is saying the onfield decision was correct."

Johnson added:

"So the 'human error' by the VAR team is getting the onfield decision wrong, not by failing to draw lines etc. The lines were drawn, and Diaz was clearly onside.

"The huge, quite unbelievable error was misunderstanding the onfield decision. As soon as Spurs take the free-kick for the offside, which they were set up for, the decision cannot be rolled back. Can only imagine the VAR room when that free-kick was taken…"

PGMOL have released a statement apologising to Liverpool for the error. They have also removed Darren England from VAR duties for the upcoming games this weekend.

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Jurgen Klopp says Liverpool lost to Tottenham in unfair circumstances

Jurgen Klopp said in his post-match interview that he was proud of his players. He said that the players did their best, but all their hard work was undone by the officials.

About the goal that was ruled out, the Liverpool manager said:

"The offside goal. That is not offside when you see it. They drew their lines wrong. The ball is between Mo's legs. They drew the line wrong and didn't judge the moment when Mo passed the ball right. It is so tough to deal with it."

Klopp was also not happy with the sending-offs of Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota. He believes that both were not fouls and that they deserved a booking but he's not interested to hear about that from PGMOL.