Liverpool’s Benteke scores controversial victor vs Bournemouth

The Liverpool striker scored from a cross when team-mate Philippe Coutinho was clearly in an offside position and interfering with play. On one hand I am very proud of the players’ performances and how they were fearless enough to go toe-to-toe with Liverpool.

The Brazilian also played at the ball while it was close to him and goalkeeper Artur Boruc appeared affected by his movement, all in apparent contravention of the latest interpretation of the offside law.

That wasn’t the only frustration for Bournemouth and Elphick, who had a goal disallowed early in the first half.

“Under the new rules, that is clearly offside”, Howe added.

Nevertheless, Benteke’s strike means the Reds have picked up a maximum haul of points from their opening two matches of 2015-16 – and without conceding a goal.

Henderson, Steven Gerrard’s successor as skipper, grazed the bar with an improvised shot from distance and was then unfortunate not to win a penalty for a barge by Max-Alain Gradel, while Coutinho curled a loose ball wastefully wide.

“We knew it’d be tough against a team that have just come up”, Milner said.

“I’m pleased we’ve got two wins, six points and two clean sheets”.

“We were sitting down with referees before the start of the season and told the new rules”. Eddie, I’m very confident, will do well and keep them in the league. He’s bedding into a new team, but you can see his threat, you can see that he’s an excellent footballer.

In theory, yes. It should be clearer when a player is offside or not, even if they do not touch the ball. “It gives us a different dimension to our game, whilst looking to retain that philosophy to move the ball and get fluency. I made the right decision and I’m happy”.

“The offside rule has changed again and it adds complication for people”, said the Northern Irishman.

“The problem for us as managers was we felt it was a little bit grey in terms of the decision”, he said.

“There’s a lot of work going on, we have to improve on our defensive qualities and we showed today that we can be solid in defence”, he was quoted as saying by his club’s site.