Jurgen Klopp takes dig at Man Utd's penalty record after Liverpool lose to Southampton
By Tom Gott
Liverpool extended their winless run to three games on Monday as they were beaten 1-0 by a resilient Southampton side.
A stunning flick from Danny Ings put Southampton ahead after just two minutes, and though Liverpool pushed for an equaliser, they never really came close to threatening Fraser Forster and lacked the quality needed in front of goal.
Here's what manager Jurgen Klopp had to say after the game, including some real bait for what appears to be Premier League title rivals Manchester United...
On 2 contentious penalty decisions
Klopp was frustrated to see Liverpool not given two second-half penalties, with referee Andre Marriner choosing not to whistle for a Kyle Walker-Peters tackle on Sadio Mane or a potential handball from Jack Stephens.
"If anybody ever again will say Sadio Mane is a 'diver', it's the biggest joke in the world," Klopp told Sky Sports. "This boy tries to stay on his feet with all he has. In two situations...other teams will get a penalty for it, let me say it like this. Then the handball, I don't know who will explain that to me.
"We had a really good view of it [the Mane incident], and it looked like a clear penalty. I turned around to the fourth official and asked if it was going to be checked, he said it already had been and was not a penalty. That's 100% true, and now someone wants to tell me how quick they had it in all these different angles.
"Last year, there was a penalty against Leicester when people said Sadio Mane goes down too easily - if he goes down easily, we would have had a penalty in this game and the last game, a stonewall penalty, but what Andre Marriner did with Sadio Mane I'm not sure if that's okay."
On Manchester United's penalty record
"We cannot change. I hear now that Manchester United had more penalties in two years than I had in five-and-a-half years. I've no idea if that's my fault, or how that can happen.
"But it's no excuse for the performance. We cannot change it, we have to respect the decisions. But we can change our performance. That's our focus now."
On a frustrating performance
"A big one, to be honest. Very frustrating, just because it’s so unnecessary but it still happens," he said (via the club's official website). "We had a bad start in the game, we played completely into Southampton’s hands and gave the game away, we have to admit now, in the first few minutes because after that we were not calm enough to create the opportunities to turn it around.
"The first half was massively influenced by the start, but with the break it meant we could settle it a little bit. Then we were dominant in the right areas, had the moments but then the decision-making was not that good. The last pass, we missed the last pass.
"I heard now we only had one shot on target; we had a lot of shots next to the target which we did not finish, but even with them we probably did not have enough for the moments we had. Our fault, my responsibility and that’s it."
On going two games without a goal
"Of course we worry about it. These are our problems. Football-wise, you don’t have a lot of different problems – it’s like you defend bad or we attack not as good as we can or we create not enough.
"They are football problems; yes, we are worried about that but football problems you solve with football and that’s what we are working on. We know about the situation, we are not silly, and we have to show a reaction, 100%."
On getting angry with his team
"I know they are great guys, they are super boys, it's a fantastic group of players. But anyway tonight they were not good. Yes, when I think they should have done better then I get angry – not long but I get angry. They know that and it was always like this.
"We cannot only be like this [pats his head] all the time just because we won something in the past. But we don't have to make it bigger than it is, but it's big. So we didn't win the last game, the game before that, the last four games – I don't know, is that right? And that's all our fault – mainly my fault but the boys had a hand in as well. We have to change that.
"If you bring yourself in a situation like we did tonight against an opponent like Southampton, then you play with the fire, let me say it like this. Southampton is too good for that, Premier League teams are too good for that. And we don't score late goals because we scored late goals in our past. You do that because you put the opponent under that much pressure that they cannot cope with it anymore.
"I think Southampton was tonight on the edge of it but they still could cope with it because we helped. That's all. We were not good enough tonight."