Jürgen Klopp's verdict on West Ham 3-2 Liverpool
Read a summary of Jürgen Klopp’s post-match press conference after Liverpool’s 3-2 defeat at West Ham United on Sunday.
The Reds were beaten for the first time in all competitions this season as the hosts added to an early Alisson Becker own goal with second-half strikes by Pablo Fornals and Kurt Zouma.
Trent Alexander-Arnold had drawn the visitors level with an outstanding free-kick shortly before half-time, while Divock Origi netted in the closing stages.
See a summary of Klopp’s discussion with the media after the game below…
On the result and Liverpool’s performance, and his opinion of West Ham’s first goal being awarded…
So, yeah, first half completely in control of the game, anyway 1-0 down because of a set-piece. We scored the equaliser – a wonderful goal – and were really in control and in charge of the game. Obviously West Ham play really good stuff this season but today it was a bit more like the old West Ham – sitting deep, going for set-pieces and counter-attacks. In the first half we didn’t let that happen apart from one, I think, set-piece, if I’m 100 per cent right, at least where they scored the goal. Then second half we lost balls in general, we lost more balls than in the first half. They scored from a counter-attack and from a set-piece; the second one was exceptionally well taken and a great, fantastic finish from Zouma. But that all shouldn’t have happened because we should have controlled the game still in the second half. For whatever reason, it looked for me a little bit like we lost patience, it was like we didn’t have enough clear-cut chances so we wanted to change the wrong things. Actually, our passing changed too early, we had to do that higher up the pitch, then you are better protected. Then we were in the situations where we lost the balls. That’s it, pretty much.
On the decisions for the opening goal of the game and Aaron Cresswell’s challenge on Jordan Henderson…
Yeah, that’s why I spoke now first about the game independent of these situations. So, we lost that game. But I think it’s a clear foul on Alisson, how can it not be? The arm from Ogbonna is there. I really don’t know who was VAR today. You always have to say that the ref maybe in the game can’t see that, but in the situation when you see how the dynamic of the whole situation, when they all go down, how close they are, they are like in each other. How can that not be a foul already, without pushing the arm of Alisson away? But the ref made it easy for himself and thought, come on, let’s see what the VAR is saying. The VAR had a look and said not clear and obvious, I don’t know why. And here’s the goal, which is really strange.
Then, I saw only the situation with Aaron and Hendo now and the way I saw it now, it’s a clear red card. There’s actually no discussion possible and, again, I don’t know how. [He] will probably say because he touched the ball before, but a reckless challenge can touch whatever you want before but you cannot control your leg that much that you don’t hit your opponent high up on the leg – on the chin – you cannot go like this in a challenge. We cannot make these decisions obviously and the ref, I don’t know what he would say about that now but in the game he looked quite confident that his decisions were all right.
On the protection of goalkeepers at set-pieces…
It’s all about the ref, it’s all about the ref. The ref is always right. I don’t know, it’s not man-marking, it’s blocking the goalkeeper. That’s what teams do. The goalie has no real opportunity to sort that situation because if he pushes a player away [and] makes himself space then it’s a foul of the goalie and that’s then a different problem. We had a couple of goals already this year – Brentford against Arsenal where I said this was a foul and they clipped the arm of the goalie in that moment. Not a lot of people saw it like I saw it, to be honest – football people, yes, but all the rest around obviously not and especially not the referees. For the goalies it is really difficult [and] this will happen much more often if they don’t intervene. It is, for me, a clear foul and the goalie is the loneliest person on the pitch in this moment because nobody helps him, he just gets attacked and in the end the ball is in and he looks a bit dumb and that’s it.