Ref Rob Styles Apologises For Affecting Result Of Liverpool’s Home Tie With Chelsea –Styles & Ian Gosling Sent Off For Weekend

After causing a furore over his erroneous refereeing the Premiership clash between Liverpool and Chelsea at Anfield on Sunday, Rob Styles has apologised.

Styles awarded a non-existent penalty to the Blues, who accepted it gleefully and Frank Lampard scored the equaliser, after the home side had led through a Fernando Torres goal.

Earlier today, Styles was dropped from the next weekend’s Premier League duty by the PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited).

In his apology to the Reds, who felt robbed of two points, Styles said: "All referees enter into matches hoping not to make any mistakes but understanding that they may happen, what none of us want is for any mistake to potentially affect the result of the match.

"Yesterday, in mistakenly awarding a penalty, I accept that I may have affected the result of the match and for that I apologise."

Meanwhile, referees' chief Keith Hackett has also admitted that assistant referee Ian Gosling, who is also dropped from next weekend’s programme, was at fault while not allowing David Healy the injury time equaliser in the home game against Middlesbrough on Saturday.

"Clearly the assistant referee has made an error, so he won't be operating next week for us either," said Hackett.

"Everyone in football recognises that goal-line systems can provide help for the referee to make his decision.

"It is still in its testing stage but we hope when it is judged to be fail-safe then it will be used."