Liverpool extend Premier League lead with injury-time penalty to defeat Leicester; Klopp angry over injury to Mo Salah
Sunday 6 October 2019 09:46, UK
Jurgen Klopp said he could not enjoy Liverpool's late win over Leicester after Hamza Choudhury's foul forced Mohamed Salah to hobble off.
The Leicester midfielder scythed down the Liverpool forward to prevent him taking a clear route to goal in the final minute of the game at Anfield, and was given a yellow card, while Salah, after playing on for several minutes, left the pitch in visible pain, with his longer-term condition as yet unknown.
Liverpool went on to keep up their winning streak for a 17th Premier League game but, after the match, a sullen-looking Klopp fumed at Choudhury - whose red-card foul on Matt Ritchie in August left him on the sidelines for two months.
"I stand here and should be only happy because of the way the boys did it, but I cannot get over the Choudhury yellow card," he told Sky Sports. "He should know better.
"He maybe was unlucky with Ritchie, but he has to calm down. You cannot only go for the man, and then get only a yellow card, I don't know how that works.
"Three years in a row we've been the team with the lowest yellow cards, we don't do these things. To slow Mo down, that's really not okay."
Klopp felt Liverpool had been good value for the win at Anfield, which equalled their best start to a season, matching an eight-match winning run at the start of the 1990/91 season.
Ahead of Manchester City's game against Wolves, Liverpool stand eight points clear at the top of the Premier League.
"We won the game, we deserved it, we were better," Klopp continued. "Leicester are a super team and they were great for 30 minutes, but apart from that it's not like Adrian had 30 saves or whatever."
Klopp called the decision to award Liverpool a last-minute spot-kick after Marc Albrighton's foul on Sadio Mane a "clear penalty", but Brendan Rodgers, while stopping short of criticising the decision, was unhappy with the Liverpool forward.
"I think that going into the box, Sadio was probably making sure he made the most of the contact," he said. "The referee's given it on feel. It's hard for the guys in the [VAR] studio to overrule that.
"I think if it wasn't given no one would've given too much of it. We had to do better in that moment too, those little details can cost you a point or three points.
"It's very cruel to concede the penalty so late, I'm not sure it was clear and obvious, but very proud of the team. We're playing against the European champions, a team so strong, especially at home."
Sky Sports' Adam Bate:
Of all the slogans that hang from the lampposts around Anfield, it is the one where Utting Avenue meets Pinehurst Avenue that feels particularly appropriate right now. The quote belongs to Jurgen Klopp. "We are Liverpool," it reads. "And we are our own benchmark."
They are certainly the team setting the standards. Seventeen times they have walked onto a Premier League pitch in these past seven months. Seventeen times they have got the job done. Liverpool's 2-1 win over Leicester at Anfield means they top the league going into the second international break and with their perfect record still intact. Just about.
Paul Merson, covering the game for Soccer Saturday, questioned whether Leicester's James Maddison was fully fit after missing last weekend's win over Newcastle, despite his equalising goal at Anfield.
"Leicester will be disappointed, but did many people really expect them to go to the home of the European champions and win? Not many," he said.
"They got into some positions, but their final pass was really poor. I do not know if James Maddison was fit as he did not really influence the game. Jamie Vardy did not really get any change.
"You have to remember there is a big gulf between the two sides. There are not many of the Leicester players who would get in the Liverpool team.
"But they will do a lot better than many other teams will do at Anfield."
