Klopp snaps at Spanish journalist & claims Liverpool gave best display of season

Jurgen Klopp snapped at reporters in his post-match press conference following Liverpool’s heavy 5-2 defeat at home to Real Madrid in the Champions League, though claims the first half was the best his side have played all season.

The Merseysiders made a pulsating start to the last-16, first-leg tie and went two goals up inside the first 14 minutes, though two goals from Vinicius Junior levelled the scores going into half-time.

Real Madrid totally dominated the second period, taking the lead just two minutes after the restart through Eder Militao, before a brace from Karim Benzema ensured Liverpool would suffer their heaviest ever defeat on a European night at Anfield.

Klopp was largely upbeat about what he saw in the first half despite the scoreline, though he took umbrage in his post-match press conference about a couple of questions from Spanish journalists about Real Madrid’s stars.

The German coach gave short shrift to a question about whether Vinicius is now one of the best players in the world, simply replying ‘yep’, before getting visibly annoyed by a later question about whether Luka Modric had shown enough at Anfield to deserve a new contract.

‘Oh god,’ muttered Klopp after being asked if he would give Modric a new deal. ‘You obviously are not too much interested in my problems, so this is not one of my problems.

‘Yeah, fantastic player and I’m pretty sure Carlo [Ancelotti] and Real Madrid will do the right thing for the right player.’

Before the next journalist went to ask his question, Klopp interjected and said sarcastically: ‘Please ask me more questions about Real Madrid players.’

Despite the scoreline, Klopp took plenty of positive from the night and the way Liverpool approached the first half, though he was far from happy with his side’s defending.

He continued: ‘Everything was pretty obvious tonight I think. We gave all five goals away. All five. That means we could have done better there, but they were all obviously different.

‘The start of the game, in our situation where we are, it’s really important that we see positive steps and I think the first half was pretty much – besides the two goals we conceded – the best we’ve played probably in the whole season. So I liked that a lot.

‘The two goals [in the first half] we have to defend a lot better… the second goal we cannot defend better, that’s slapstick, but it equalised pretty much our second goal that we scored.

‘The first goal we concede we have to defend better, there are enough players around, no-one puts a foot in, stuff like this, it’s very tight and it’s just a world-class moment from Vinicius as well but I think it’s obvious that we can defend that better.

‘Half-time was rather positive, to be honest. And then we started by conceding the third goal, which is a horrible goal and today it was pretty much the game-changer. That doesn’t mean it was OK that it was a game-changer, but it was today.

‘We lost the momentum in that moment and never really got it back. In the first half we could have scored a third goal, we had our moments, we were unlucky with a scrappy situation in the six-yard box.

‘And the second half the game was the game Real Madrid wanted to play. Both the other goals they scored, one is deflected and they weren’t really well defended to be honest. We lost the ball in the wrong moment, which is obviously a massive problem against Real Madrid with the counter-attacking threat they have and that’s how it gave the result and that’s it.’

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