Former Sky Sports presenter Richard Keys has suggested that Dominik Szoboszlai’s magnificent free-kick against Arsenal, which won Liverpool the crucial match on Sunday, should have been disallowed. The two championship contenders squared off in what was already being billed as a potentially make-or-break meeting for their season’s objectives, and after a close contest devoid of quality, the Hungarian midfielder struck like a bolt from the blue.
The former RB Leipzig player scored an amazing long-range free kick, quickly erasing memories of Trent Alexander-Arnold. However, Keys has claimed that the goal should not have stood, and he is supported by an ex-PGMOL chief.
Keys and Hackett claim Liverpool’s goal should not have stood.
Keys took to X after the game and released a snapshot of the moment Szoboszlai connected with his free-kick, which appears to show both Florian Wirtz and Cody Gakpo close to the Gunners’ wall. This prompted the presenter to imply that the goal should have been chalked off, with the caption:
“There’s no one-metre gap here. Have we already forgotten about that?
The claim follows a similar event in Chelsea’s first game of the season against Crystal Palace. Eberechi Eze scored what would have been the winner, shooting through Robert Sanchez’s attempts to score a first-half free kick. However, the goal was called out because Marc Guehi was excessive in his blocking attempts and came too close to the wall.
According to IFAB’s official explanation of the law, “Where three or more defending team players form a ‘wall’, all attacking team players must remain at least 1 m (1 yd) from the ‘wall’ until the ball is in play.”
“If, when a free-kick is taken, an attacking team player is less than 1 m (1 yd) from a ‘wall’ formed by three or more defending team players, an indirect free-kick is awarded.”
Former Premier League referee Keith Hackett joined in, agreeing with Keys. He jokingly reacted to the presenter’s original tweet, “That was last week Richard, this week the law interpretation has changed.”
This prompted a fan to present another angle in which Wirtz and Gakpo appear to be standing further away; nevertheless, Hackett advised the person to ‘play the video not a selective photo.’ Dale Johnson, a VAR expert, made the same argument concerning the distance between the players and the Arsenal wall.
In a follow-up, he would quote the rule in question to demonstrate that the strike should not have been allowed.
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