Mark Goldbridge tore into Michael Oliver over an ‘absolute joke’ of a decision during Liverpool’s defeat to Manchester City on Sunday.Although Arne Slot’s side were thoroughly outclassed by their hosts in a 3-0 humbling, there were two major first-half refereeing calls which went against the Reds.The first of those saw the home side awarded a penalty for an alleged foul by Giorgi Mamardashvili on Jeremy Doku, which was only given after on-field referee Chris Kavanagh changed his mind upon consulting the pitchside VAR monitor, much to Virgil van Dijk’s disgust.Goldbridge lets rip at Oliver over ‘joke’ VAR decisionOliver was the man in control at Stockley Park, and although the Liverpool goalkeeper saved Erling Haaland’s spot kick, Goldbridge still let loose at the Northumberland official.Speaking on a livestream of the match on That’s Football, the influencer raged: “Justice. Michael Oliver, you’re an absolute joke. You are an absolute hypocrite. You are not good at your job.“What is it about you and Man City? I don’t know. Two years ago, Liverpool had a stonewall penalty at Anfield and he didn’t give it. Here we are two years later – he’s overruling the referee for something that wasn’t clear and obvious, pulling rank again and making it all about himself. Absolute joke.”Image via @LiverpoolZNE on XGoldbridge is right to call out Oliver over baffling inconsistencyThe incident from March 2024 to which Goldbridge is referring is, of course, when Doku booted Alexis Mac Allister in the chest but Oliver somehow failed to award a penalty for what was a far more grievous offence than the one which led to the spot kick today.VAR is only meant to intervene on ‘clear and obvious’ errors, and that description certainly couldn’t be applied to Mamardashvili’s slight clip on the Man City winger, who got away with blue murder at Anfield a couple of seasons ago.Between that and the ridiculous decision to disallow Van Dijk’s goal at 1-0 today, the officials absolutely didn’t do Liverpool any favours. Unfortunately, neither did LFC themselves – the final score was a fair reflection of the game as a whole.That still shouldn’t absolve Oliver and Kavanagh from scrutiny, though, with some of their calls today being impossible to comprehend. For a Man United supporter in Goldbridge to be so enraged at decisions going against us speaks volumes for how bad some of them were.We look forward to seeing PGMOL chief Howard Webb try to justify those two first-half incidents at the Etihad in the coming days…You can view Goldbridge’s tirade at Oliver below, taken from That’s Football and shared via @Mohqoshin on X (Viewer discretion is advised as the clip contains coarse language):“F*cking justice, Michael Oliver you’re f*cking joke mate”Mark Goldbridge after Haaland missed penalty after Michael Oliver overruled the referee! Man city v Liverpool #ManCity #LiverpoolFC pic.twitter.com/aO8mIkicvL— Football clips (@Mohqoshin) November 9, 2025The post Mark Goldbridge rages at Michael Oliver after Liverpool suffer from ‘absolute joke’ decision appeared first on The Empire of The Kop.