LIVERPOOL should have had a penalty for the pull on Alexander Isak’s shirt by Arsenal defender Jurrien Timber, according to a Premier League review.

The Key Match Incidents Panel has ruled VAR Stuart Attwell should have advised on-field referee Andy Madley to award a spot-kick in the November 1 game at Anfield which Liverpool lost 1-0.

With Arsenal ahead through a Kai Havertz goal, Timber tugged on Isak’s jersey as the Reds striker tried to meet a 21st-minute cross from Bradley Barcola.

The KMI Panel agreed by a majority of 4:1 that the offence merited a penalty.

And the five-person review group voted three to two that Attwell should have intervened and asked Madley to look again at the incident after he failed to point to the spot.

But Attwell and his VAR team looked at the incident and cleared it.

Former Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard described Attwell’s decision as “an absolute embarrassment”.

Gerrard told The Overlap podcast: “The speed of the cross and how it happened and the reaction, you can understand how a referee could possibly miss that or think there’s not much in that.

“But for someone to sit in [the VAR room] with all these screens around – how you miss that in the VAR seat is an absolute embarrassment.

“To hold someone’s shirt for that long and have three or four opportunities to see that and slow it down, and the amount of cameras that are in stadia at the moment, it’s really poor from Stuart Attwell.”

Some observers, including former Liverpool striker Daniel Sturridge and fellow pundit Gary Neville, said Isak should have made more of the incident and would probably have been rewarded with a penalty if he had.

But ex Red Jamie Carragher and former Arsenal striker Ian Wright disagreed.

The KMI panellist who thought Timber’s tug was not an offence believed the “short-lived holding to lack clear impact on the ability of Isak to progress”.

For the same reason – the subjectivity of how much the pull impeded Isak – two panellists said VAR was right not to intervene.

Nevertheless the majority opinion was Liverpool should have had the chance to level the score from the penalty spot in the big match against the PL leaders.

Reds manager Andoni Iraola said the officials’ failure to award a spotkick would lead to players going to ground to make sure fouls were noticed. 

The Kop boss told BBC Match of the Day: “There is a clear grab of the shirt.

“Alex was just in front of him. He was going to head in front of the goal, but couldn’t because he grabbed the shirt.

“If he goes to the floor, they call the penalty, 100%. It should be like this, but it is what it is.

“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.”