Sevilla manager offers ridiculous excuse for his red card offence

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Sevilla manager Eduardo Berizzo insists the action that led to his dismissal was meant to be in aid of Liverpool.

Berizzo was sent off in the second half after throwing the ball away from Joe Gomez for the second time in the match.

Speaking after the game, the Argentine claimed he decided to repeat his time-wasting in order to somewhat make up for his first offence.

“It was two different actions and situations,” he told the Liverpool Echo.

“When we were winning and Liverpool were on the counter I did something that wasn’t right, I threw the ball to stop the advantage of a counter attack. I realised that was a mistake.”

“However in the second half, when we were losing and chasing the game, I still decided to throw the ball away to make up for (my actions in) the first half, so I tried to do the same.”

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“(Jurgen) Klopp understood but the referee didn’t understand, he was the only one.”

“He did act to the letter of the law, but I wanted to try to explain, what I did explain to the Liverpool staff is that it wasn’t a bad intention, I was just trying to make up for what happened before.”

There are few who will be buying into that explanation.

Berizzo’s absence proved irrelevant as his Sevilla team scored an equaliser to prevent Liverpool from enjoying a winning return to the Champions League group stages.

It turned out to be a frustrating evening for the Reds as they wasted a number of chances to see their opponents off, having fought hard to turn things around in the first half.

Moments of typically scintillating attacking football from the hosts went unrewarded, no thanks to yet another shoddy defensive display.

Nevertheless, it was good to be back in European club football’s elite competition.

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