Diogo Jota appeared to be fouled before Southampton’s opening goal and it reminded Jurgen Klopp of a previous incident, from the same referee.
Speaking with Sky Sports after the match, the 54-year-old said: “We concede a goal out of nothing, I didn’t see it back but for me it looked definitely like a foul.
“Martin Atkinson had the same situation for us already, against Manchester United a while ago and Rashford scored a goal, it was exactly the same. Afterwards [the referee says] ‘yes, we could have whistled that’.
“But who cares, it made it only more special and I’m really proud of the boys”.
The game in question was at Old Trafford in October 2019, Divock Origi appeared to be fouled and then Manchester United went down the other end of the pitch and scored (here’s Jamie Carragher’s analysis of the missed foul):
You can certainly understand the frustration from the German and perhaps the best news we can provide is that Martin Atkinson is retiring at the end of this campaign.
As the boss said as well, it just made the win ever better because we came from behind and let’s hope we can get two more victories this season!
You can watch Klopp’s thoughts on Atkinson courtesy of Sky Sports (via @footballdaily on Twitter):
🗣 "Martin Atkinson had the same situation for us at Manchester United a while ago, when Rashford scored a goal."
Jurgen Klopp says the win was more special after he felt there was a foul in the build up to Southampton's opener pic.twitter.com/qse5bGkyQB
— Football Daily (@footballdaily) May 17, 2022
Atkinson is an absolute bell-end and should be put out to pasture in the Outer Hebrides if we are being kind.
Jota was fouled and S’hampton should never have scored.