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Jurgen Klopp defended the use of VAR at Anfield after the controversial new system ruled out a West Brom goal and delivered a penalty to Liverpool.

The decisions took time and many were left slightly bemused on the sidelines as referee Craig Pawson first referred a "third goal" by West Brom on 20 minutes which was eventually ruled out on review for offside.

Later in the first half, Pawson referred a possible pull on Mohamed Salah to VAR Andre Marriner before also coming over to the touchline to view it himself.

That took more than four minutes but Klopp felt it's natural in the early stages.

Asked if it disrupted the flow of the game, Klopp joked heavily: "Which flow?" and his team's lack of form throughout.

But he added: "I think it's normal. It's nice that West Brom celebrates a goal and then someone tells them it's not a goal. It's important that if a goal should be disallowed then it should be, that's what we all wanted.

"Usually in these two situations, after the game we talk about it and I have to talk about a defeat which maybe was not deserved because we didn't get a penalty and they scored another goal.

"It's normal in the beginning that it takes a little bit longer. Is it cool in January when it's cold for the players especially, maybe not.

"But that will become a little bit smoother, more fluent, in the future."

In fact Klopp felt the system could have been used for what he felt was a bad challenge by West Brom substitute Ahmed Hegazi on Roberto Firmino in the second half.

"Hegazi was really lucky that he ended the game on the pitch tonight. It was a harsh, harsh challenge...It was not even a foul, did he whistle? That is strange but it was not the reason we lost the match."

Winning manager Alan Pardew - on the wrong end of the decisions - had a rather different view.

"It's hard to know where to start, you guys are all here and are all experienced reporters and have seen many, many games. I don't think that's what you'd want to see going forward.

"Whether you're a Liverpool fan or a West Brom fan, firstly there's no communication from the referee to us, like in the NFL, where they tell you they're going to look at something.

"We didn't know what the decision was, why it was stopped. okay, then he reverses the Dawson goal, I think if it wasn't for the system it would never have been disallowed in any league game, for offside, the fourth official told me.

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"That was a bit of a surprise from a corner. Okay I've looked at it, it's really marginal and there's a question there.

"Are we going to take away goals, the entertainment of the game, on those slight margins and I think that's a worry.

"The second one (the penalty), you could argue that Jay has lifted his arm to stop him. you could argue would Salah have got it?"

Pardew felt one of his players ended up injured because of the VAR delays.

"The bigger worry for me was I think it was four or five minutes for the Salh decision. You're going from high tempo to nothing and we had a hamstring just after that.

"We're going to have to change our methods to get our players to mentally do a warm up in that situation or keep ticking over.

"It's just bizarre. There was a lot of Scouse wit from the sideline which I enjoyed, there was wit from our fans as it went on with "VAR, VAR" shouts for every decision.

"It was a bit strange.

"As a football person on the sideline I wasn't comfortable with that first half, it was kind of mysterious at times."