[ad_1]
Jürgen Klopp offered his assessment of Liverpool’s performance following a 1-1 draw with Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday.
A busy afternoon at Amex Stadium saw the hosts squander an opportunity to take a lead in the first half when Neal Maupay slipped a penalty just off the post.
At the other end, Mohamed Salah had a shot ruled out by VAR for offside before the break; however, the hot streak and the end of Diogo Jota gave the Reds the first goal midway through the second period.
Sadio Mane then had a header scored by the video assistant referee, but the visitors maintained their lead heading into injury time.
However, play came to a halt when the VAR reviewed an earlier challenge from Andy Robertson of Danny Welbeck inside the box and, after referee Stuart Atwell consulted his field monitor, Brighton received a second penalty.
This time Pascal Gross converted, ensuring that the Seagulls took a share of the points.
Read on for a recap of Klopp’s post-match press conference at Amex Stadium …
On the second penalty given to Brighton and Liverpool’s two efforts discarded for offside …
My analysts told me that Mo was out of the game, very close, with a very small margin, like toe or whatever. Sadio obviously with his upper body, I didn’t see him, I heard that. But that sounds like twice off the game, even when he was close. But well played, good game, all these kinds of things. The second penalty is a penalty because the referee whistled it. There was a contact and when the referee thinks it’s enough, obviously we can’t change that. That is the situation.
On Jota’s ninth goal of the season and the impact Jordan Henderson had in the second half …
I also liked the first half. Of course they had a little more offensive situations because we had to adapt, we had to actually learn in the game. When you look at Brighton, Brighton plays football against each team, it has a game accumulation against each team. Against us obviously they shoot the long balls, that’s fine. That was a small difference. Then, with Connolly up front, they played very early balls behind. Like I said, this last line now played together for the first time, so they needed to adapt. After 20, 25 minutes we did that, we controlled it. Connolly’s possibility was great, all the other situations Ali resolved. So, I also liked the first half. And of course when you have Hendo on the field that always helps, absolutely. We scored one goal and we couldn’t score the second. OK, I scored a lot more goals, but they were disallowed and they couldn’t score a second that would have been allowed. Then came the penalty, that’s right.
On whether Thiago Alcantara or Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain could return against Ajax or Wolverhampton Wanderers …
I don’t want to tell Ajax and Wolves too much, but I don’t think so.
On the five substitutes rule …
Look, if it was about me, I would never have mentioned it, but it’s about the players and every moment it happens would be good for the players. Brighton lost two players with muscle injuries and they play one game a week. The most difficult moment is approaching. For Sheffield United too, by the way. We will see. I can explain it one last time: in this period that we are in now, five subs is not for tactical changes. And if ever a coach is lucky enough to use it for tactical changes, that would be the exception. Today we did a first sub at halftime, then we did a second sub and then we really thought if we are brave and [will] do the third sub. If you are not brave, you have to wait with the third sub until minute 90 practically because until then, when five more minutes appear, for example, you can say: ‘Okay, if we change now, probably nothing will happen. , or we’re only three or four minutes with 10 men. ‘ If we had five backups today, then Andy Robertson would have taken off, 100 percent; He had Kostas Tsimikas on the bench, so he can play 15/20 minutes. So we don’t have a lot of options right now, we do, but they’re all offensive so you can carry them throughout the season. It is not the solution, but it is a little help. That’s it. Whatever Chris Wilder says, I’m not just talking about Liverpool, he’s only talking about Sheffield United, that’s true. He admitted it to the coaches meeting, but I am talking about footballers.
