Ryan Mason blasts referee Paul Tierney for failing to send Diogo Jota off

Ryan Mason has blasted referee Paul Tierney after he failed to give Diogo Jota a red card following his high boot on Oliver Skipp which left the Tottenham midfielder requiring stitches.

Jota, who had been introduced for Luis Diaz, made an attempt to win the ball in the centre of the pitch shortly after Tottenham had grabbed their second of the game, while Skipp put his head in.

The Portuguese's studs caught Skipp on the side of his face and he immediately went down, and when the physios ran on to give him treatment it was clear Jota's challenge had drawn blood. The Tottenham players were left incensed by Tierney's failure to send Jota off

Speaking afterwards, Mason was open about his fury at the decision - claiming it was an 'impossible' decision for him to miss.

'I have to be careful what I see but ultimately that's an impossible one to miss,' he told Sky Sports. 'When you talk about endangering an opponent, to draw blood from a stud when his head if 5.5ft in the air just baffles me.

'That type of decision is the difference between winning the game or not. For me it's tough to understand and I'd like an explanation.

'I see it in real time and you have a feel for those sort of moments. The VAR official has a replay. I'm devastated about today because of the way the game went.'

Echoing his sentiments to BBC Radio 5Live, he described it as the 'clearest' red card you are ever likely to see.

'Honestly, it's probably the clearest red card you will see on the football pitch. I need an explanation. It endangered the opponent, Skipp needs stitches and Jota has scored the goal when he shouldn't be on the pitch,' he said.

Tottenham once again started slowly in the game, allowing Liverpool to race into a three-goal lead before they fought back in exhilarating fashion.

Richarlison had looked to have grabbed them an unlikely point when he headed in in injury time, but Jota, who Mason made clear he didn't feel should have been on the pitch, capitalised on an inexplicable Lucas Moura error to win it.

'To give a team a three goal lead makes it almost impossible to come back from,' Mason said.

'The feeling is that we can score goals and hurt opponents. We created chances, they didn't give us anything we had to work for that. To equalise at the end and then give away another goal is so hard to take.

'I probably speak for everyone that there was some fear [after conceded three goals]. To give a team goals, it's hard to understand why. We need to address that and be better. After that we showed togetherness.

'I don't know how many shots they had on target but it felt like we had more.

'This is the Premier League, it's relentless and you have to be ready to fight for 95 minutes. We conceded three terrible goals and it's hard to explain why that happended. It's tough to take.'