Former Liverpool centre-forward Emile Heskey has had some harsh words for the VAR calls made against Liverpool during their game against Tottenham in an interview with Alt Index.

Heskey called for ‘better officiating’ in England as a whole, floating the idea of bringing in top officials from abroad to ameliorate the issue.

What did Emile Heskey say regarding the decisions given against Liverpool?

On the decisions made on Saturday, Heskey claimed: “The refereeing on Saturday was tough to take as a Liverpool fan. To see Luis Diaz score and the referee to disallow it, and then VAR not give it as a goal when it was a clear goal, it just shows that the VAR system is too up and down, it’s too inconsistent for the Premier League.

“I know we talk about VAR, VAR, VAR, but it’s still human error. Yes VAR is bringing these sorts of things to our attention, but it’s still human beings making the mistakes.

“They owned up to their mistake and that’s fine – but we can’t keep having this. We can’t keep having these sorts of mistakes being made. That was the reason we brought VAR in, to get rid of these human-error mistakes, so something needs to change. We’re probably no better off with VAR since its introduction, we’re supposed to be better off with it, but we’re not!

“It all shows that we’ve got to get better officiating in this country, get back to delivering higher standards. We used to pride ourselves in the Premier League having the best referees in the world. But are we still the best at it?

“I’m not so sure… The Premier League and FA could recruit officials from abroad to help raise standards, that’s definitely a possibility, but ideally we need to work within with what we have in this country. Unless we’re recruiting from abroad in a technical capacity, we need to focus on what we’ve got.

Does Heskey think there should be a rematch?

Heskey said: “Unfortunately for Liverpool, I don’t think there can be a replay of the Spurs game, I don’t think that, or the re-awarding of the points, would be possible. It’s difficult because the game has finished now.

“Unless Liverpool request a replay to the Premier League or FA, I don’t think there’s anything they can do – but a replay isn’t the right way forward for me. I don’t think the officials could have asked for Spurs to let Liverpool score a goal either, you can’t do that during a game.”