Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer agree on Kiernan Dewsbury

Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer agree on Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall controversial yellow card

Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall was weirdly shown his fourth yellow card of the season for taking a free-kick too quickly during Everton's 2-1 defeat at Liverpool on Saturday

Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer have both agreed that Everton midfielder Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall shouldn't have been booked for taking a taking a free-kick too quickly during Saturday's Merseyside derby against Liverpool.

Referee Darren England handed Dewsbury-Hall, 27, a yellow card in the 78th minute after attempting to get on with the game and take a quick free-kick. With the Toffees 2-1 behind, Dewsbury-Hall didn't want to waste no time and fed the ball into Jack Grealish's path, but England instead blew his whistle and booked the ex-Leicester man.

David Moyes cut a frustrated figure on the touchline, while Dewsbury-Hall and James Garner protested the decision. Meanwhile, Jack Grealish slammed the referee in his post-match interview and claimed he has never seen a player get booked in his whole life for taking a quick free-kick, hinting that he was influenced by the Anfield crowd.

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"I've never seen a player in my whole life get booked for taking a quick free-kick," Grealish told TNT Sports. "I don’t know where that rule has come in. Even the stoppage-time, three minutes and one minute – I’ve never seen that in the Premier League in the last two or three years.

"There were frustrations with the referee. Sometimes you want to let the game go, I completely get that, but you can't not give us something and then two seconds later one of their defenders goes down after getting touched in the back and he gives it.

"You come to these stadiums and the crowd are on them, I feel that they feel they have to give it. Kiernan is on four yellows now and he got one for taking a quick free-kick. We want to get the game going, we’re losing."

Now, Lineker and Shearer have weighed in on the debate and both believe that the decision was a harsh on.

First, former Everton forward Lineker said on The Rest Is Football: "They had a bit of a gripe at the end didn’t they, and we should probably talk about it. They got a yellow card for taking a quick free-kick.

"Now, it should be encouraged – this is one of my pet things, what we need in the game is for free-kicks to be taken a damn sight quicker because at the moment it takes like a minute.

"Everyone gets organised, the referee has to wait, he tells them to wait, this and that, everyone gets back. They’re talking about trying to get rid of time-wasting and the referees are the biggest time wasters of all because they want everything to be so slow and long.

"What we should have enforced, the right to take a free-kick as quickly as you possibly want to because it should be the team that gets fouled, they should have some sort of advantage," he added.

"But, at the moment, they don't. So someone gets fouled like they did yesterday, they take a quick free-kick and then they're penalised, double penalised."

Shearer then branded the decision as "madness" as he fumed at Dewsbury-Hall's yellow card.

"Unless you're taking it from a ridiculous spot, like 20 or 30 yards nearer to the goal or something like that," Shearer said. "Why does the referee have to set himself? Your the team that has been punished. Your the team that had the foul given for you, yet you're getting booked for taking a quick free-kick on the spot. It's just madness."

Everton ended up losing the game 2-1, with Idrissa Gueye scoring in the second half after Ryan Gravenberch and Hugo Ekitike had put Liverpool in firm control. The Toffees created the better opportunities late on but couldn't find that all-important equaliser and left Anfield empty handed.

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