Alan Pardew Fumes Over Liverpool Penalty Decision

Crystal Palace boss Alan Pardew was left fuming after Christian Benteke's injury-time penalty condemned his side to a 2-1 defeat against 10-man Liverpool. Despite being down to 10 men, Liverpool fought back after Alex McCarthy's error handed Roberto Firmino an equaliser before Benteke scored from the spot with one of the last kicks of the game after going down in the box under Damien Delaney's challenge.

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp declared it a clear penalty but Pardew blasted referee Andre Marriner's decision to award the spot-kick and said Benteke had made a big meal of the incident. He said “He's looking for it, our player has pulled out of it and if the linesman's called it for that knee touch on the foot in the last seconds of the game, then I think that's harsh. There's no-one in the middle, there's nothing going on there. I think it's wrong. Delaney shouldn't go to ground and I think he knows that, he pulls out of it and it's the follow through of his knee that catches him on the bottom of the foot. If you give a penalty for that in the last seconds, that's a bit tough. He certainly made a big meal of it in my opinion, If it had been us we wouldn't have got it. We've had penalties all year with Wilfried Zaha and not got them. I'm frustrated because the referee looked at it and he wasn't giving it. He knew and the linesman thought there was contact before that. He didn't actually think it was the knee, he thought it was contact before that. I know that”

Pardew although admitted his side should have seized the opportunity presented to them once Liverpool had gone down to 10 men saying “I feel like we've been robbed a little bit but again maybe we shot ourselves in the foot at times when they were down to 10 men, we should have pushed on a bit more and kept the ball better. We didn't build any pressure or get our passing going at that stage. That was the disappointing thing because up until that period we were good and deserved to be in front. The goalkeeper's mistake is costly and makes us edgy. That edginess carried us through to the end really and we couldn't get out of that mode”.