Okay, so the Reds have fallen into a teeny, tiny slump as of late. In Premier League play, they fell to Tottenham 2-1 in a hotly-contested match filled with more cards than a stationery store and, a week later, they tied Brighton 2-2 in a game in which they had the lead until late in the contest. In Europa League group stage play, they beat Union Saint-Gilloise 2-nil.

Tottenham: I watched that dreadful, aggressively-officiated Sept. 30 Tottenham game between two unbeaten Prem teams (there were a dozen cards issued during this match!) from my living room, where I shouted repeatedly when Curtis Jones received a yellow card 26 minutes in, but, after the officials reviewed it via VAR (video assistant referee), the braintrust decided Jones actually earned himself a red card and a time out … which will last for three games. (An appeal of that ruling failed.) This also meant that Liverpool had to play Tottenham with one fewer player on the pitch.

After Liverpool goalie Alisson Becker made two tremendous saves in a row, fans’ spirits were on the upswing. They were thoroughly lifted in the 34th minute when Luis Diaz scored a quick shot. Jubilation. Celebration … wait … what? The on-field ref said Diaz was offside so the goal was “disallowed?” Reader: Diaz was most definitely on side and the goal should have counted.

In what ESPN called “the biggest error the Premier League has seen” when it comes to officiating, the refereeing team miscommunicated and the on-field official misconstrued what the VAR folks were saying and gave the ball to Tottenham for a free kick. VAR realized that the goal was actually legit, but the on-location official misunderstood. “Seven seconds later,” ESPN reported, “the VAR team realized their error. Panic set in, but they decided they couldn’t go against protocol, so they let play continue.” Seriously? They knew Diaz’s goal was legit, but decided to let “protocol” — which is supposed to assure fairness and accuracy — triumph in the face of a nakedly obvious error?

My mood darkened even further when Liverpool was forced to play with only nine players (instead of the usual 11) because those sterling officials hit Diogo Jota with a second yellow card in the 69th minute, after awarding him a yellow card in the 68th minute. According to Prem rules, when you receive two yellow cards, like Jota did, that equals a red card and you get sent off the field.

To make matters exponentially worse, in the 96th minute, Liverpool’s Joel Matip scored an own goal (meaning he accidentally hit the ball into his team’s net) giving Tottenham the 2-1 win, an atrocious cherry on top of that wretched Tottenham sundae.

While I ranted on social media along with Liverpool fans about the disallowed Diaz goal which would’ve made the difference between a loss or a tie, Liverpool’s club issued a statement saying that the erroneous Diaz offside call “undermined sporting integrity,” while Liverpool Manager Jurgen Klopp said the game – which would’ve been 2-2 if Diaz’s goal counted – should be replayed, sparking mockery from Liverpool haters everywhere. (The VAR refs who handled this call weren’t allowed to officiate games the following day, so the refs knew they screwed up.)

Honestly, I’m still kinda salty about the whole affair, even a week later. While I spent more time than I would have liked debating my Chelsea-fan son (who agreed the offside call was wrong) by saying that, in the face of such a costly error (think of the monetary and business implications), the Prem should remedy the mistake, he kept telling me it was a pipe dream. But they know it was a mistake, I kept saying. They had it within their power to fix it. They could, like the Olympics does when it’s revealed that someone was doping or a judge was bribed, modify the results to reflect the new information. Apparently, according to my son, I’m a naive idiot for thinking this way.

Europa League Group Play: The next time a Liverpool game was on TV was the Oct. 5 Europa League group stage match against USG (the Belgian Royale Union Saint-Gilloise team). This wasn’t a good day for me. By game time, I felt drunk and high. And not in a good way. I’d received a combo flu and COVID vaccines the previous day and the cumulative effects, coupled with the insomia I experienced, hit me with unexpected force yielding chills contrasted with bursts of heat, muscle achiness, severe foggy-headedness, weakness, and lightheadedness. I spent the morning of Oct. 5 feeling not-at-all-right while I laid in bed listening to CNN anchors and reporters discuss the chaos inside the US House of Representatives after the Republican party booted its own speaker. I was proud of myself that, despite feeling ill, I remembered there was a Liverpool game on TV that afternoon. But, because I was feeling so lousy and didn’t want to fetch my laptop or the Roku device, I opted to watch the game on a channel that broadcast in Spanish (a language I do not speak) because that was the only station on which I could watch the game from my bed.

In spite of the haziness of my brain, I was still able to take handwritten notes on what I witnessed. My notes say I was impressed by Jota’s 92nd-minute goal after he outran his opponents and blasted a shot into the bottom corner of the net with his left foot, afterwards, celebrating by pantomiming pulling back on a bow and releasing an arrow into the crowd. Why? I have no idea. Did I, in my post-vaccine fog, imagine all of that? No, an online search revealed, I did not. My notes were indeed correct, at least about the Jota bow-and-arrow thing. Liverpool won, 2-nil. And, unlike with the card-mad Tottenham game, officials tagged players with a grand total of … zero cards.

Brighton & Hove: By the time the Oct. 8 game at Brighton & Hove started on a Sunday morning, I was already dressed, ready for church, and had informed those who use our family streaming account that I planned to watch the game on my phone. Luckily, during there were no issues with streaming access. Unluckily, Brighton drew first blood in the 20th minute with a triumphant goal, however, by the time I was ready to leave the house, good old Mo Salah evened it up. Salah then added a second goal to the scoreboard via a penalty kick just before halftime. Two-one, Liverpool.

The second half began five minutes before I pulled into a parking spot next to the church in downtown Westborough, Mass. With the game streaming on my phone, I turned the volume off as I stepped into the 19th century building and chatted with one of the greeters for several minutes. I resisted the urge to turn my phone over — I’d pressed the screen into my thigh — so I could check if the score had changed. When I finished the conversation, I felt proud of myself for being completely present during that exchange and then felt relief that the score was unchanged.

Once I settled into one of the pews in the back of the sanctuary, I found it difficult to prop the phone up so I could clearly see the tiny screen. I didn’t want everyone to notice that I was watching British football during church; I was trying to be subtle, respectful. I opted to rest the phone atop my right leg which was crossed over my left, as I tried to angle my face toward the pulpit and only use my eyes to look at the phone. However when the minister began to read the statement the president of the Unitarian Universalist Association released about the murderous attacks in Israel that took place the day before, I put the phone on the pew cushion beside me and gave the minister my full attention. It just felt wrong not to do so.

After that, I left the device upon the crushed, red velvet pew cushion in order to rise and “sing” — I can’t really carry a tune all that well — a hymn. (I have yet to figure out a way to record streaming Liverpool games so I don’t have to multi-task.) Once the hymn concluded, I was relieved to see that the score hadn’t changed … until the 78th minute when Brighton tied it up. Unable to shout to express my disappointment, I silently clenched and unclenched my free hand and screamed internally. Game officials handed out two yellow cards by the end of the game – one to Joe Gomez (only six minutes after he entered the game), one to a Brighton player – and the match was over by the time the collection plate was passed. A 2-2 tie.

After I got home, my Chelsea-fan son gleefully informed me that people online were mocking Klopp by sarcastically asking if he would demand to replay the Brighton game as well as the contested Tottenham game. Ha, ha.

It was eight weeks into this season, and Liverpool still ranked significantly above Chelsea in the Prem standings. I let him yammer on while I kept that little dagger of truth to myself.  

Image credits: ESPN, The Sun, and Reuters.