Iraola criticises decision to send off Gravenberch in Liverpool’s loss to Man City

Andoni Iraola criticised the decision to send off Ryan Gravenberch in Liverpool’s 3-0 defeat to Manchester City, insisting the midfielder’s first booking should never have been given.

Gravenberch was shown two yellow cards as Liverpool were reduced to ten men when the game was goalless, with Iraola particularly unhappy with the first.

“I think the first foul from Ryan is never a yellow card. Never,” he said.

“He doesn’t even call the foul straight away. He lets it go, Anderson does a couple of steps and decides to go down.

“I don’t know why, after, he shows the yellow card because it’s not a situation where there is advantage. We have nine players behind the ball.

“It was in the middle of the pitch, no danger there, and then as a referee you put yourself in trouble and also us in trouble.”

Iraola was also frustrated by Ronald Araujo being booked early in the game for signalling that an opponent should be shown a yellow card.

“I know he does like this, but in these kind of games, you put, straight away at the beginning, the right-back with a yellow card,” he said.

“In the textbook it’s perfect, he complains and you can show a yellow card.

“But then I will be very careful all the season. Every time someone complains, it has to be a yellow card.”

Liverpool were also without Dominik Szoboszlai for the loss, who returned from international duty with a fitness issue.

“Szoboszlai came back from the national team with tightness and overload,” Iraola said.

“We put him as a floater in the training sessions to try to protect him but he was feeling something very small.

“Now we play four games in ten days so it’s going to be difficult. We fly to Austria in two days so it’s going to be difficult to recover any of the players.”