Jurgen Klopp was furious with a report that emerged in the wake of Liverpool’s crushing 5-0 victory over Manchester United the prior weekend claiming that the former Mainz boss felt official Anthony Taylor had shown leniency to the Red Devils.
The 54-year-old referenced Cristiano Ronaldo’s contentious kick on Curtis Jones, with the Portuguese international escaping the incident with a yellow card.
“A real fake news story last week was that I thought United should have had more red cards,” the German told reporters gathered.
“I didn’t think a second about it, not a second, we were sitting in the dressing room, there was not one talk.
“The Athletic said something, ‘people close to the staff’ or whatever, which I always find a really dangerous saying, said that Klopp thought there should have been more red cards.
“Honestly, for all of you and, in this case, The Athletic or whatever, you cannot do these kinds of things. It’s just not right. It’s just wrong – it’s a lie.
“We didn’t think about it, we didn’t speak about it, not for a second, I couldn’t have told you which situation they were talking about.
“We spoke about Cristiano Ronaldo’s situation and from my view where I was I thought, ‘yes, it could be a red card,’ but when I saw it back, I saw he hits the ball, it’s a yellow, completely fine, no problem with that. But we never spoke about that.”
Paul Pogba had been issued his marching orders following a studs-up challenge on Naby Keita, with a series of cautions handed out to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s men for rough play.
Whilst questions had followed Taylor’s performance at the weekend after it seemed that a number of hefty tackles were handled with leniency, the Liverpool boss had not publicly criticised the Englishman’s performance.
It seemed that we had, to a degree, taken our foot off the pedal after Mo Salah completed his hat-trick to compensate for the arguably limited protection from the official.
We’ll be hoping for a somewhat cleaner game this afternoon, of course, when we face Graham Potter’s classy Brighton and Hove Albion outfit.
You can catch the full clip of the manager’s comments below:
🗣️"You cannot do these kinds of things. It's just not right. It's just wrong – it's a lie."
Jurgen Klopp addresses a false claim made regarding his thoughts on the lack of red cards issued v #MUFC 🔴 #LFC pic.twitter.com/smgt0Xm6oL
— Empire of the Kop (@empireofthekop) October 29, 2021