Updated 15:54, 09 May 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nChelsea weren’t happy with referee Craig Pawson denying them a spot-kick(Image: 2026 CameraSport)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/button><\/p>\n
Calum McFarlane was baffled with the decision not to award Chelsea a late penalty in their 1-1 draw with Liverpool at Anfield.<\/p>\n
The Blues’ six-match losing run in the Premier League came to an end with a spirited performance against the reigning champions, though McFarlane’s side were unable to take all three points away from Merseyside.<\/p>\n
Things could have been very different, though, if Joao Pedro was awarded a penalty after a challenge from Jeremie Frimpong inside of the Liverpool box. There was a VAR check but referee Craig Pawson was told to stick with his initial decision of no penalty – something McFarlane vehemently disagreed with.<\/p>\n
“I thought the game could have gone either way really at certain moments in that game,” said McFarlane.<\/p>\n
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Bobby Vincent<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n“I think, probably being a little bit biased, I think we could have won the game. We had some good moments. I remember Enzo’s chance in the first half, Cucurella getting into some really good areas, crossing areas, another marginal offside, another penalty shout that I thought, personally, I know it’s a tough job for officials, but I think that’s a clear penalty.<\/p>\n
“So, yeah, arguably we could have come away with three points.”<\/p>\n
McFarlane seemed delighted with a much-improved, and what he described as “complete” performance, to stop the rot on Saturday afternoon ahead of next weekend’s FA Cup final against Manchester City.<\/p>\n
The interim head coach said: “This club needs to win games of football, and we haven’t done that today. We’re not happy with the form and some of the recent performances.<\/p>\n
“So, yeah, it’s nice to have a good, complete performance. It would have been better with a win, but when you come to these places, it’s really difficult. So, yeah, it’s positive.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea came away from Liverpool with a share of the spoils after a 1-1 draw…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7031,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}