Jurgen Klopp Liverpool
Jurgen Klopp has confirmed he avoided a red card from referee Paul Tierney because of the input of fourth official John Brooks in Sunday’s 4-3 win over Tottenham Hotspur. Klopp clarified that an exchange with Tierney following the goal led to the Greater Manchester referee stating that he would have given a red card had it not been for the intervention of Brooks and the German says that while he doesn’t think his reaction was too far over the mark, he would chat to clear the air, if it was deemed necessary.
Jurgen Klopp said: “At one point we will maybe get the audio. That is what I understood [by Tierney’s comment]: ‘For me it is a red card but because of him, he said yellow’. He pointed to the fourth official, yes. I could [get in touch with Brooks]. I didn’t even think about it. Honestly, it was not cool but I just celebrated in his direction. What did I actually do? I got a yellow card for it but do you think it was bad enough, honestly, for me to give an apology? Was I that close [to him]? OK, well we don’t have numbers for referees and I have to be honest, I haven’t thought about that yet but I can do that easily. That is not a problem. I said it was my fault but I just didn’t think it was that bad but it’s how we all know, things that don’t look that bad in your own mind are sometimes different to what the outside world sees. If it looks [bad], you’re the first one who told me that and everyone has spoken to me about it. Everybody. You’re the first to ask me that but I will consider [getting in touch], definitely.”
Klopp was initially left incensed by the decision not to award Mohamed Salah a free-kick after a tangle with Spurs defender Ben Davies in injury time of Sunday’s game. The visitors immediately went down the other end and ended up equalising through Richarlison in the 94th minute.
It’s the second time Klopp has found himself in trouble with the officials when getting angry about fouls that aren’t given to Liverpool star Salah following the narrow 1-0 win over Manchester City in October where the manager was sent off for his berating of Gary Beswick after the forward had clashed with Bernardo Silva.
Klopp feels that Salah does not always get the protection from match officials, saying he doesn’t know how the Egypt international handles the treatment without losing his cool more often.
Jurgen Klopp added: “Yes these stats [for Salah fouls] are surprising, I know them as well and I have to say they are surprising. He has the ball constantly at his feet, Mo is a dribbler and has scored an insane number of goals over the years and it is like this. How Mo deals with all of this I don’t know. He is absolutely exceptional but for me at the moment, it’s not that it is again [a foul] on Mo, it is just obvious. Bernardo Silva’s was a clear foul on Mo and this situation (on Sunday) is a clear no-foul. With the Silva decision taken into account and now this foul, it is the same punishment. I don’t understand it. If nothing happens after that then it is done and dusted but we concede a goal 35 seconds after this incident. I just didn’t want to find an excuse for my reaction, just to explain it. It was like: there’s a foul, there’s a free-kick, there’s a goal. And pretty much directly after, we scored, so that was pretty much the emotion I was in. And now we see and I hope you realise I am in a completely different mood. But in this situation it is really tricky to deal with and you had similar conversations with other managers. It is not to excuse our behaviour or whatever but you never had a real situation when you are in it. You (the media) write about it but you were never in the situation to feel it. I cannot describe it because it just happens more or less and the emotions are going up and down. If all managers are going up and down like they are on the touchline that would be a crazy life. So we are not because that is an extreme situation and this had led to that [incident] and it was still the wrong reaction, of course, but that is it.”
