Liverpool beat Brighton on Sunday as Fernando Torres watched on in the Anfield crowd.
Torres has been in the news recently after returning to play in the LFC Legends game against Ajax 10 days ago. He duly scored in front of the Kop for the first time in more than 13 years.
Following his appearance in the charity match, the Spaniard has spent some time shadowing Jurgen Klopp at the AXA Training Centre.
A burgeoning coach himself, could it be that Torres is being earmarked for a role on the new-look Liverpool coaching team? Only time will tell on that one.
In the meantime, what we know is that the former striker was at Anfield this weekend. And according to Reds legend John Aldridge, El Nino was not too impressed with something he saw.
Fernando Torres unimpressed at Anfield
It was a big result for Liverpool on Sunday. Their finishing may not have been the best – with Mohamed Salah the worst culprit – but they got the job done in the end.
Torres perhaps wasn’t all that enamoured by the shooting of his former teammate Salah, but that wasn’t what disappointed him the most.
Writing in the Liverpool ECHO today, Aldridge instead claims that the World Cup winner was appalled by the standard shown by referee David Coote. Former Liverpool left-back Fabio Aurelio was also seemingly in agreement.
“I asked Fernando Torres and Fabio Aurelio, who were at the game. I asked them, ‘What do you think of the referee?’ They said, ‘F______ h___,’ in Spanish. Unbelievably bad,” says Aldridge.
“And they’re not biased like I can be. I asked them just for their honest opinion and they couldn’t believe how bad he was, so that tells you.”
Read more: Could Fernando Torres be about to join Liverpool’s new coaching team
What did the referee get wrong in Liverpool vs Brighton
There was nothing actually massively wrong in what Coote and his team did at Anfield. There were no major talking points or anything like that.
Liverpool may feel they could have had a penalty after Salah spun the ball through Lewis Dunk’s legs and was then taken down. But it wasn’t nailed on.
Instead, the disappointment from Aldridge, Torres, Aurelio and plenty of Reds supporters, was all of the little things that the referee consistently gave against Liverpool.
The Reds were brandished five yellow cards during a game which didn’t have a single bad tackle. Brighton got three. And despite having 46% possession, Brighton were awarded 20 free-kicks to Liverpool’s six. That doesn’t seem right. Thankfully, the win made it a moot point after the game. But the standard of officiating simply needs to improve. Quickly.