REFEREE Simon Hooper had to be replaced after suffering an injury during Liverpool’s trip to Brentford.
Liverpool were trailing the Bees after Dango Ouattara and Kevin Schade had put Brentford 2-1 up.
And after Milos Kerkez pulled one back on the stroke of half time, Brentford fans jeered Hooper for taking longer than expected to blow up for the interval.
Hooper then had to be withdrawn for the second half after struggling with an issue – as fourth official Tim Robinson replaced him.
Instead, Hooper swapped roles with Robinson and became fourth official for the rest of the game.
Brentford fans had been far from pleased with Hooper after Liverpool scored through Kerkez in the 50th minute.
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That was despite fourth official Robinson only adding on three minutes of stoppage time at the end of the half.
A number of Brentford players, including captain Nathan Collins, approached Hooper after Kerkez’s goal to protest about the added minutes of stoppage time.
And there were some ironic cheers heard from the crowd at the G-Tech Community Stadium when the announcement was made that Hooper was being withdrawn.
He also got into Liverpool supporters’ bad books after failing to award a penalty when Cody Gakpo went to the ground in the area under a challenge.
Ouattara had acrobatically put Brentford into the lead in the opening five minutes when he volleyed home from a flick on at close range.
Schade was then put clear through on goal just before the half time whistle and finished calmly to make it 2-0.
LLiverpool threatened to mount a remarkable comeback in the second half after Kerkez cut the deficit.
But it was Brentford who pushed the Premier League champions and Robinson was forced into a big decision in the 60th minute.
Virgil van Dijk was adjudged to have caught Ouattara on the edge of the area – with Robinson initially giving a free kick.
But after VAR took a closer look at the incident, he reversed his decision and pointed to the spot.
Igor Thiago made no mistake from the resulting penalty to restore the home side’s two-goal cushion.
Liverpool were already hurting from a run of four defeats in a row in all competitions that was halted after beating Frankfurt 5-1 in midweek.
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