Sunday 22nd August 2021
“Watch Wrestling”
Klopp is angry about the new English toughness
“Trivial things” should no longer be punished in the English Premier League. The flow of the game is paramount. Jürgen Klopp is very concerned about that, he fears for the health of his players. In the win against Burnley, he finds enough arguments for his point of view.
Jürgen Klopp’s joy about the return of the fans to Anfield was gone pretty quickly. The team manager of Liverpool FC praised the atmospheric atmosphere in front of 52,591 spectators in the 2-0 (1-0) win against Burnley FC: “Everyone has been waiting for this football festival and nobody has left their place under the impression of disappointment. Our dreams have come to an end Fulfills.” But the 54-year-old was quite annoyed by the tough pace of the opponent in the first home game in front of spectators after 528 days. “If you like that, watch wrestling”, the former Dortmund master coach ranted in an interview with BT Sport: “It’s as if we go back 10 to 15 years.”
Klopp called on the Premier League to protect the stars from increasing hardship in the game. Before the start of the season, the clubs of the elite class had been informed that “trivial things” should not be punished in order not to prevent the flow of play. In the Reds’ second win of the season at Anfield Road on Saturday, Referee Mike Dean did not give Burnley players a single yellow card, despite twelve free kicks being awarded to the guests. Diogo Jota (18th) and Sadio Mane (69th) provided the Liverpool team with a three.
“Fighting incredibly hard”
Klopp openly criticized the actions of Burnley players Ashley Barnes and Chris Wood: “I’m not one hundred percent sure that the officials are going in the right direction with their decisions.” His team is always ready to take on the fight, “that was the case today,” said the Liverpool coach. But: “The message is: Do not disturb the flow of the game, but nobody knows exactly what that means.” Klopp advocated a game management that “prefers the offensive team, we have to be careful to protect the players. We can’t ignore that”.
His team had a number of good moments, “in which we played a brilliant game without scoring a goal. The rest of the time we had to fight incredibly hard,” said the coach hurt.”
.