ESPN pundit suggests 22-year-old Liverpool player could actually have been sent off last night

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Liverpool midfielder Curtis Jones was lucky not to receive a red card against Leicester City last night.

Jones was captaining the side from the unfamiliar position of right-back during Wednesday night’s win in the Carabao Cup.

By and large the 22-year-old did well in a new role, as expected drifting infield whenever the chance arose. But according to ESPN pundit Frank LeBeouf, Jones’ night could very well have been cut short.

“You talked about the red card maybe for Chelsea, but you didn’t talk about the elbow from Jones in the first half,” said the former France international.

“Maybe could have been showed and decided otherwise by the ref and maybe would have changed the result.”

Despite his gripe about a potential sending off though, LeBeouf did concede that Liverpool deserved to win on the night.

“It was an interesting game. I liked the rhythm of the game, the pace of the game,” said the pundit. “Leicester aren’t that far from the Premier League. We could see they still have that power and that strength, but Liverpool came back bigger, stronger. It was justified that they scored three goals and they won.”

Jones escapes Leicester punishment

Had Liverpool gone down to 10-men in the first half, while 1-0 down, then it certainly could have changed the result.

However, you get the feeling that it wouldn’t have knocked the Reds out of their stride too much.

In truth Leicester were incredibly lucky themselves. Lucky that they weren’t already two or three goals behind by the time half-time rolled around.

The Reds absolutely pummelled them from pretty much the second they went behind, to the referee blowing for full-time.

Of course, with Trent Alexander-Arnold and Joe Gomez both missing, a Jones red card would have thrown up the question of who slotted in at right-back.

But with Stefan Bajcetic coming off the bench later in the game and Wataru Endo perhaps an option too, Liverpool would have managed.

Without VAR, there was never going to be enough in Jones’ challenge on Kasey McAteer to be a red card anyway. Leicester may feel harshly done by, but last night’s result was never really in doubt.