We go again. Another Premier League weekend that spills controversy into the week that follows.
Nottingham Forest were decidedly quiet across their social platforms on Sunday. After their full-time X post shortly before 5pm on Saturday, just the one tweet in the 24 hours that followed, thanking their fans for the support in the 1-0 defeat to Liverpool.
And amid a flurry of reaction and debate surrounding Darwin Nunez’s 99th-minute winner at the City Ground, which came two minutes after Liverpool were incorrectly awarded a drop-ball by referee Paul Tierney, Forest’s own silence is loud.
It smacks of a club considering their options, of a club still reeling from the late drama, of a club – potentially – unwilling to accept the result. Club statement incoming?
After all, there is now a precedent. Over in the Belgian Pro League, a “misapplication of the rules” prompted a disciplinary board to rule that Anderlecht’s match with KRC Genk must be replayed.
Genk lodged the appeal after the 2-1 defeat on 23 December, and only learned they were successful more than a month later.
This replay being ordered based on a VAR error is widely believed to be a European first, and followed Jurgen Klopp’s own calls for Liverpool’s defeat at Tottenham to be replayed following a mistake in that Premier League match in October.
At the time of Klopp’s head-turning comments, he did at least sound a caveat. “The argument against that will probably be if you open that gate then everybody will ask for it.”
Now, with Genk the trailblazers, we could see if a Premier League side is soon willing to follow suit.
Because with Forest, in the instance where a point has been lost, you cannot help but wonder, for the ingredients are there.
You have an angry owner – Evangelos Marinakis came down from the stands on Saturday to protest the late goal – of a club who are fighting a relegation battle, and may well be appealing a points deduction soon as well.
Whether their alleged FFP breach leads to any punishment is unclear, but what is clear is their precarious position in the Premier League, and what the prospect of any points being deducted could lead to.
That is why this matters for Forest, and where this gets messy. Add to the mix a club who have hired a referee analyst in Mark Clattenburg and you have a club who are unlikely to merely accept incorrect decisions and move on.
We know this because former Premier League referee Clattenburg attempted to flex his status by entering Tierney’s dressing room on Saturday – before he was rightly barred from entering.
We know this because Clattenburg talked up his relationship with the PGMOL just days after he was pictured next to referee chief Howard Webb at Forest’s FA Cup defeat against Manchester United.
We know this because, as Forest stayed quiet, Clattenburg aired his own grievances – making for blurred lines where he sometimes speaks of the club as if he hasn’t just been hired by them.
He said: “What we’ll be doing is speaking to the PGMOL, with the relationships I have with the PGMOL and the Premier League, and we’ll discuss what happened on the field. After that we will look at whatever is the course of action in the near future.
“I’m here to advise the club, certainly because, for example, this is a matter of law, therefore I can explain the matter of law. That’s what I’m here for, to advise the board and the football club.
“I haven’t spoken to the referee. I’ll leave that to the officials of Nottingham Forest. I advise them what to say.”
Sometimes it’s “we”, sometimes it’s “the club”, but that doesn’t really matter. The whole saga is just another terrible advert for modern football, a game that is no longer played in the moment. Nothing from the fallout to follow would surprise us this week.
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