Jurgen Klopp has a brilliant relationship with the Liverpool fans but has issued a demand and asked for a new trend amongst some supporters to stop.
Following the Champions League game with Porto at Anfield, two young lads gathered headlines as one ran on the pitch to take the ball off Andy Robertson and threw himself head-first into the Sir Kenny Dalglish stand.
It was a comical moment that even lead to Jamie Carragher changing his Twitter profile picture to that of the ball stealing boy.
However, this incident appeared to inspire other fans against Southampton and Everton to do the same.
The main problem is with the stewards and police who should not be allowing supporters onto the pitch as it only takes one idiot to come on and hurt a player and then it will reflect very badly on the whole club.
Spotting this increasing trend, our boss took to his programme notes to issue a warning and message to the Anfield faithful:
“If a good relationship is built on honesty, there is a concern that I have to raise about a problem that has crept in recently.
“In quite a few games we have had supporters run on the pitch and this is something that needs to stop.
“As a club, we have worked incredibly hard to build a special bond between players and supporters and in the right circumstances I want the interaction between both to be at the highest level. I want the players to know how lucky they are to play for this club and for our supporters and I want our supporters to know that the players are playing for them.
“The more we can be together, the better – but the pitch itself is an exception to this. We are still in the midst of a pandemic and this means the players spend their times in red zones, doing everything they can to limit contact so that games can be played.
“This precaution is absolutely necessary but it means the players have to make sacrifices in their own lives in order to reduce the risk of infection. The pitch is a red zone and needs to be treated that way.
“But even if these measures were not needed, safety and security would still be a priority. The safety of our supporters and our players is always paramount and we know that this is jeopardised whenever anyone enters the playing area who isn’t supposed to be there.
“At Everton last week, a steward fell awkwardly when he tried to stop someone from running on the pitch. Shortly after, Alisson had to take evasive action to avoid another supporter who almost knocked him over. It was not so long ago that Adrian was injured by a pitch invader who caught him by accident as we celebrated winning the Super Cup in Istanbul. None of these outcomes or risks are worthwhile.
“Whenever we win games I want to celebrate with our supporters but our ability to do so is undermined if we have security issues. This was the case at Goodison where I would have loved to have spent longer enjoying the moment with our fans but it just was not possible because the stewards had to clear the pitch.
“This isn’t the way we want it to be. We want to share special times with you, but the best way of doing this is by all of us being in the place we’re supposed to be. Anything else doesn’t make sense”.
Strong words from the German but they were certainly necessary in relation to all the important matters he has raised.
You can watch the full comments by Klopp in the Liverpool programme via @carlmarkham:
Jurgen Klopp also speaks out against the recent spate of post-match pitch invasions of people chasing match balls and player shirts pic.twitter.com/N4mywoCqDj
— Carl Markham (@carlmarkham) December 11, 2021
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Any idiot who runs on the pitch needs a lengthy ban. The problem is if it’s a day tripper who wouldn’t be back anyway.