Klopp’s dressing room message to Liverpool players after Leicester collapse
Jurgen Klopp made clear to his Liverpool stars their capitulation against Leicester was totally unacceptable.
The Reds were comfortable for large parts of their crunch showdown with Brendan Rodgers’ high-flying team.
And Mohamed Salah’s classy second-half goal looked set to earn them all three points until the 78th minute.
James Maddison’s free-kick, which was deemed onside after a tight call from VAR, was the start of a manic change of fortunes for Leicester on the day.
Within seven minutes, they were suddenly 3-1 in front and held onto that lead to move six points clear of top-four rivals Liverpool.
Klopp’s reigning champions are now in serious danger of not even qualifying for the Champions League.
And he finally publicly warned his players after the match how they need to stand up and be counted, revealing he was not happy in the dressing room with how they collapsed late on.
“The game was really good then we concede these two goals,” Klopp told BT Sport. “The third one obviously we lost the ball too easy, one pass and they are done.
“That’s something I don’t like because we were obviously much too open in that moment.
“That’s really – I told the boys already – not OK. But that’s the situation we’re in.”
Leicester’s equaliser frustrated Klopp massively with the circumstances surrounding the goal as VAR ruled in Leicester’s favour with the tight offside call.
And his team’s poor reaction to the goal was compounded by Leicester scoring two more soon after and clinching all three points.
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Klopp admitted: “We conceded a goal that was a really tough one to take. I know we discuss a lot about VAR but I think we all agree it was a turning point in the game.
“I saw it now, a couple of times, the goal and the moment when they stop the situation where you look at who is offside he [Maddison] hadn’t even touched the ball yet.
“So that means it is still an individual decision of someone who decides if it is offside or not offside.
“And that’s really hard because for me it looked like a clear offside in that moment because he has to touch the ball, that’s the moment when offside is yes or no.
“And when I saw it now, and when Bobby’s foot should be a little bit closer than whatever they throw in there. That’s it. It was a turning point.
“The second goal is a misunderstanding. We spoke about before that we need to get used to each other so we were used to each other until the goal happened, 75 minutes or so.”
In an even more damning example of how far Liverpool have fallen this season in the midst of their injury crisis, Klopp admitted their bid to retain the title is now over.
Despite having only played 24 of their 38 Premier League matches this season, the Liverpool manager confessed when asked if he was conceding the title: “Yes, I can’t believe [the question], but yes.”
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