It’s not been the greatest of afternoons for Andy Robertson, especially by the Scot’s generally high standards.
The Liverpool left-back found himself on the end of some pretty poor luck for Fulham’s opener at Anfield on Saturday. A superb lofted cross from Antonee Robinson over to the far post was met with a hooked finish from Andreas Pereira, which unfortunately caught his opponent en route to the back of the net.
Double misfortune for Robertson given that the Brazilian arguably should have been sent off earlier in the tie after scraping his boot down Ryan Gravenberch’s Achilles.
The situation was then quickly made worse six minutes later when the Liverpool star took down Harry Wilson as the last man, denying the Welshman a clear goalscoring opportunity.
Sadly, A VAR review could not prevent the 30-year-old’s fate and he was correctly awarded his marching orders by Tony Harrington.
With only 17 minutes spent on the pitch and Andy Robertson’s involvement in Andreas Pereira’s opener, it’s unsurprising that Sofascore have awarded the Scot a 3.2/10 score for his showing at Anfield.
Commenting on proceedings between the Cottagers and Liverpool, Chris Sutton described the No.26’s latest outing as an ‘absolute stinking afternoon’.
“What an absolute stinking afternoon for Andrew Robertson. Had that collision earlier, then deflected Pereira’s shot in and then has been sent off,” the pundit spoke on BBC Radio 5 Live.
It leaves Slot’s men with quite the uphill battle to restore parity, let alone take the lion’s share of the points at home.
To give credit where credit is due, of course, this was hardly ever an absolute banker of three points given that Silva’s outfit has been more than challenging opposition for the league’s contenders.
There should be no rush to pile on our Scotland international should Liverpool drop points on Saturday.
Apply one correct decision and VAR review of Pereira’s challenge on Gravenberch and the complexion of the game looks markedly different by the 15-minute mark. Oh, and let’s not even get started on that dreadful challenge in the opening stages from Issa Diop.
Perhaps we have more time to settle and reduce the risk of erratic decision-making.
We’ll never find out either way, of course, but we’re putting this one down to snowballing misfortune for Robertson.
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