Jurgen Klopp told reporters he was not a “puppy” when facing the media after Liverpool’s defeat to West Ham in the Premier League. The Reds suffered a 3-2 loss to the Hammers at the London Stadium on Sunday evening, to see their unbeaten start to the campaign come to an end. A Trent Alexander-Arnold free-kick and a goal from substitute Divock Origi proved to be mere consolations for the visitors. An own goal from Alisson followed by a Pablo Fornals strike and Kurt Zouma header meant that Liverpool’s 25-game unbeaten run came to an end. Fielding questions from BBC 5Live and Sky after the game, Klopp could not hide his frustrations when quizzed on certain aspects of the defeat.
Jurgen Klopp said: “[The long unbeaten run coming to an end] is the least of my problems. However long a run is, it will come to an end. There are couple of things that happened during the game that are difficult to take. If you don’t take your chances you’re leaving things up to ref decisions.”
Klopp was then quizzed further about what decisions he was referring to, to which he replied: “It’s really interesting you ask that.
Jurgen Klopp said: “I’m not sure I want to answer the question if you don’t know the situation I’m talking about. Do you not think [Alisson was impeded for the first goal]? Is your job not to have an opinion? Okay that’s nice.”
One decision that divided opinion was VAR’s call not to instruct referee Craig Pawson to send off Aaron Cresswell for a challenge on Jordan Henderson. The West Ham full-back wasn’t even handed a yellow card by Pawson, and VAR checked to see if the challenge was worthy of a red – but the on-field decision was upheld. When asked if he thought Cresswell should have been sent off, Klopp again invited the press to draw their own conclusions.
Jurgen Klopp said: “My god. I’m not your puppy. Hopefully, you have an opinion yourself. All good.”
