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Saturday, 7 January 2012
Liverpool investigate abuse aimed at Oldham's Tom Adeyemi
Liverpool and Merseyside Police are investigating an incident of alleged abuse from fans towards Oldham Athletic defender Tom Adeyemi.
The 20-year-old was visibly upset late in his side's 5-1 FA Cup third round defeat at Anfield on Friday.
The game was stopped briefly while Adeyemi alerted referee Neil Swarbrick to the incident.
However, Merseyside Police confirmed that no arrests were made for "racially aggravated behaviour".
BBC Radio 5 live's senior football reporter, Ian Dennis, said Liverpool were taking the matter extremely seriously.
"Immediately after the final whistle chief executive Ian Ayre, director of football Damian Comolli, press officer Ian Cotton and manager Kenny Dalglish were in the tunnel talking to the police, Oldham directors, and the match officials.
"During that process the welfare of the player was of paramount importance," he said.
Our players went and calmed him down and the Liverpool players did as well, which was fantastic and is why they are top professionals."
The incident involving Adeyemi compounds a difficult few weeks for Liverpool, who were without Luis Suarez for the match against the Latics as the striker serves an eight-match ban for racially abusing Manchester United defender Patrice Evra at Anfield in October.
Oldham gave their Premier League opponents a scare when Robbie Simpson fired in from 30 yards, but goals from Craig Bellamy, Steven Gerrard, from the penalty spot, Jonjo Shelvey, Andy Carroll and Stewart Downing sealed Liverpool's passage to the fourth round.
"The scoreline is a bit flattering really," said Liverpool boss Dalglish, who made eight changes to the side that lost to Manchester City on Tuesday.
"Oldham did their club and their manager proud. They created one or two threatening situations for themselves, especially in the first half, so getting back as quickly as we did with the equaliser helped us.
"But the scoreline does not reflect the distance between the two teams on that performance.
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