I'm old school like that too, and I hate the "there was contact" justification for giving penalties. Just because there was contact doesn't make it a foul.
Except in the modern game it does. And given that's how it is these days, that was dumb ass defending. Attacker is going away from goal, there is no danger, and you bump into the back of him. You do that, you are giving the ref an opportunity to give a peno against you. Every pundit I've heard since yesterday (even ex Liverpool players) say it was a peno and that CL was right to go down.
Well then the pundits are wrong. Or stupid and can't apply logic to arguments.
A guy going down and cheating may be smart (or dumb of the defender to place a hand on him), but it is still not a foul.
It was also horrible reffing, there was no danger to the goal and in those situations it needs to be 100% clear there was a shove, or shirt pulling etc.
There wasn't and it wasn't, yet Pawson called it.
FWIW, I think Craig Pawson is a mediocre referee (at best) and the quality of reffing in the EPL has plummeted down over the last couple of years.
They (the refs) are fortunate to not have the players in their faces the whole time like in La Liga, or the crowd on their backs - then they would actually be on the reputation level of La Liga refs.
Clattenburg may be a pompous git, but the guy is (on most nights) a ref on a level that Pawson and his like will never come close to.
EPL needs VAR, they are being stubborn and are thinking of themselves better than Serie A or Bundesliga. And despite early hiccups, VAR is proving to be a massive success in both league, and a significant amount of points has already been prevented from going the wrong way due to bad ref decisions.
Honestly, the easiest test of this stuff is to imagine you're playing a 5v5 game with your mates. Noone will dive, noone will have to dive.
If its a foul, where you're impeded by your buddy on the opposing team, you'll call it and they'll agree.
But if you call a foul for what Lovren did there, everyone will laugh at you. Rightly so.
....
Also, it'll be quite interesting to see whether DCW gets a suspensions for cheating / deceiving the ref.