BREAKING: Liverpool handed Florian Wirtz penalty verdict after Arsenal decision

Liverpool have been given fresh encouragement over a controversial penalty incident involving Florian Wirtz after new scrutiny of a similar decision that went in Arsenal’s favour. The article explains how debate has intensified around a non-award of a spot-kick when Jeremie Frimpong went down under pressure, with Wirtz heavily involved in the build-up, during Liverpool’s recent clash with Arsenal at Anfield.

The flashpoint, initially waved away by the on-field referee and not overturned by VAR, prompted anger among Liverpool supporters, many of whom felt the decision echoed other high-profile errors this season. Pundits and former players have since dissected the incident, arguing that the contact and its impact on the attacker met the usual threshold for a penalty, and questioning why the VAR did not at least send the referee to the monitor for a re-check.

Into this context comes a separate but influential ruling by the Premier League’s Key Match Incidents Panel, which recently concluded that another side should have been awarded a penalty against Arsenal, and that VAR also erred in failing to intervene. The panel’s 3–2 split decisions in that case — both on the original call and the lack of review — underline how tight and subjective these judgments can be, but they also formally acknowledge that mistakes were made at Arsenal’s benefit.

The Liverpool–Arsenal Wirtz incident has not yet been subject to the same official post-game verdict, but the article suggests that the precedent of the panel criticising a comparable decision strengthens Liverpool’s sense of grievance. It raises the prospect that if the Wirtz episode is later reviewed in the same way, Liverpool could receive retrospective confirmation that they, too, were on the wrong end of a crucial VAR error with potential implications for the title race.