Micah Richards and Ashley Williams in full agreement over Liverpool vs Wolves controversy
Micah Richards and Ashley Williams agreed that Diogo Jota dived to try and win a penalty during Liverpool's 2-1 victory over Wolves on Sunday.
The match referee initially pointed to the spot after Jota went down in the Wolves penalty area following a collision with center-back Emmanuel Agbadou, but the decision was reviewed by the video assistant referee and subsequently overturned.
A Premier League statement on the decision said: "VAR checked the referee's call of penalty to Liverpool for a challenge by Agbadou on Jota and deemed any contact was not initiated by Agbadou, therefore recommended an on-field review. The referee overturned the original decision, and play restarted with a drop ball."
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Replays showed that Jota manufactured the contact in a bid to win a penalty, and Richards and Williams praised the officials on Match of the Day 2 for getting to the right decision in the end.
Richards said: "They should get some praise because I think this... initially when we saw it, we all thought it was a penalty. He goes sliding in, but on the next angle, you see Jota flings his left leg into him straight away there. It's not a penalty and he should have been getting a yellow card for that."
Williams added: "His touch has taken it a little bit away from him and he knows that and he can't shoot and he thinks the contact is coming but it never actually comes and just is a dive."
Meanwhile, former Premier League referee Keith Hackett questioned why Jota avoided a booking for the incident. 'The referee was in a good position to judge the challenge,' Hackett told Football Insider. 'Very good intervention by VAR and the overturn of the penalty kick award.
'Jota rather fortunate not to be yellow carded for an act of simulation. When Jota went to ground and referee hooper awarded a free kick, that was rightly overturned after a VAR intervention. Why wasn't Jota yellow carded for an act of simulation?'
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