Houllier: Jeffers conned referee

Liverpool boss Gerard Houllier felt his side had been robbed of victory by referee Jeff Winter after the 1-1 draw with Arsenal at Highbury yesterday.

Winter pointed to the spot for the second time in 10 minutes when he penalised John Arne Riise for a foul on substitute Francis Jeffers.

Houllier, whose side have not won for nine Premiership games, said: "I feel a bit frustrated.

"I thought the penalty on the replay looks very harsh. Probably Mr Winter was conned by the dive of Jeffers.

"I think he has dived and you can see it. He did not pull his shirt. He should never have given that penalty.

"Hopefully when he sees the replay we will get the yellow card rescinded."

Houllier felt his side had done enough to win and was disappointed to be leaving with only one point.

He added: "I thought we had a couple of chances before the penalty and on the second half we deserved to win, but they are a good side.

"We are creeping up and getting better and better. We have not lost for four games now. We have lost some points. We are probably six or seven points short of what we should have.

"I thought we would have had the points today but we had that penalty. A win would've been good but we are still just nine points behind and the title race has started today."

Steven Gerrard told Sky Sports: "We needed something. It was important we didn't lose. I thought they were miles better than us in the first half but we showed in the second half we could match them.

"We could have sneaked it at the end because we had a couple of chances. We came here for the win but we had to be cautious. The important thing was not to lose here because we would have been out [of the title race]."