Speaking after the game, Klopp opened up on the incident and admitted he was fed up with opposition teams trying to target Mane and get him in trouble with the officials – but did concede that he “deserved” to be punished by the referee.
Jurgen Klopp said: “It was a completely clean situation. Two players jumped in the air. And the bench of Arsenal is going for whatever. And I just asked ‘what do you want for that?’ I’m really sick of these situations. Everyone goes for Sadio. It was about the situation that it was no foul from Sadio [Mane] but the Arsenal bench went up like it was a red card. I asked what they want in that situation. We had to take Sadio off against Atletico [Madrid in the Champions League] because they wanted him to get a yellow card. The referee did really well in that situation – I deserved a yellow card. It wasn’t not OK and that is what I said. It just happened in the moment.”
Arteta was also asked about the incident, but the Spaniard inevitably played it down in his admission,
Mikel Arteta said: “He was trying to defend his side, I was trying to defend mine. I think the atmosphere was incredible from the beginning. That was it.”
The disappointing performance from Arsenal led to their first defeat in 10 games in all competitions, but Arteta will be keen to get his team back on track ahead of this weekend’s meeting with Newcastle United at the Emirates Stadium.
