Isak stayed up and the panel still says penalty, so Iraola's 'you have to dive' falls flat

Alexander Isak stayed on his feet when Jurrien Timber grabbed his shirt at Anfield, and Andoni Iraola's verdict afterwards was that honesty cost Liverpool a penalty. The Premier League's Key Match Incidents Panel has now ruled on the 21st-minute moment from Arsenal's 1-0 win on Nov. 1, and it agrees it was a penalty. It just doesn't agree that Isak needed to go down to get one.

The five-member panel voted 4-1 that referee Andy Madley should have pointed to the spot when Timber held Isak as the Swede tried to meet Bradley Barcola's cross. It also voted 3-2 that VAR Stuart Attwell made a clear and obvious error by not sending Madley to the monitor. The panel was unanimous that it was not a red card for denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity.

The Premier League's explanation leaned on the same factors referees are told to weigh: whether a defender is focused only on the opponent rather than the ball, whether there is any attempt to play it, and whether the holding is sustained or has a clear impact. "In this instance the panel deemed that Timber's challenge on Isak met the threshold for a holding offence and should have resulted in a penalty kick, both on-field and through VAR intervention," the league said.

The dissent is worth noting too. One panellist felt the hold was too short-lived to clearly stop Isak, and two felt the subjectivity around impact meant it didn't reach the high bar for VAR to step in. That is a narrow margin, but it is a margin on the VAR question, not on whether a foul happened.

Right after the game, Iraola was blunt. "If he goes to the floor, they call the penalty, 100%," he told BBC Match of the Day. "Next time, the managers should tell Alex to go to the floor, otherwise they won't call it. The answer is you have to dive. If you don't dive they won't call it." Asked if he would actually tell Isak to do that, he said: "Yes, definitely."

The ruling cuts both ways for Liverpool. It confirms the grievance, but the reasoning the league published says nothing about the attacker falling. The test is the defender's action and its impact, and by that test the panel says Madley and Attwell simply got it wrong. Staying up wasn't what denied Liverpool the kick; two officials missing a hold that four of five reviewers saw as a foul was.

Arsenal were 1-0 up through Kai Havertz's 16th-minute goal, assisted by Declan Rice, when the incident happened five minutes later. That goal held up, Arsenal won at Anfield in the Premier League for the first time since 2012, and Liverpool did not get a shot on target all afternoon, according to LiveScore's review of the panel findings.

LiveScore's alternative table, which swaps in the outcomes the panel says should have happened, has Liverpool third instead of fourth and Arsenal on 25 points instead of 27. That is speculative by design, since nobody knows whether Isak or anyone else would have scored the kick, but it shows how much one missed call can move a crowded top four.

The same report backed all seven VAR overturns in Match Round 9, and found 76% of on-field key decisions correct that round. Over the season, the panel has judged 86% of 196 key on-field calls correct, rising to 97% after VAR. It also unanimously backed a handball penalty against Sander Berge, whose arm was above his head, and pointed out that no handball penalty has been given on the field all season, only two after VAR reviews.

Liverpool get no points back from this, and Arsenal keep a five-point cushion over Brighton going into the break. What Liverpool do get is a published standard to point to: a shirt pull that stops a striker reaching a cross is a penalty whether he falls or not. If Iraola follows through on his promise to tell Isak to go down, he would be coaching around a mistake the league has now admitted, not around the rule.