Liverpool miss chance to extend lead to seven points but move five clear of Man City at top of the Premier League
Thursday 31 January 2019 09:46, UK
Jurgen Klopp took exception to several refereeing decisions after Liverpool missed the chance to move seven points clear of Manchester City at the top of the Premier League.
Sadio Mane opened the scoring against Leicester with just two minutes and two seconds on the clock at a snowy Anfield, but the league leaders failed to capitalise as Harry Maguire earned the Foxes a point in first-half stoppage-time.
Liverpool held but move five clear
Liverpool 1-1 Leicester: As it happened
Maguire's strike came just six minutes after the England international saw yellow and not red for a last-man challenge on Sadio Mane, before Ricardo Pereira escaped punishment from Martin Atkinson after bringing Naby Keita to ground in the area midway through the second half.
"They had chances and so it's of course absolutely OK the 1-1," Klopp said.
"Even when I think everybody agrees that there could have been a penalty, maybe should have been a penalty. I don't know why it was no penalty and then we have the situation with Maguire.
"It's now the second time in a game where a striker from my team, somebody brings him down at the halfway line and we treat it like it is I don't know where.
"He would not have been alone through [on goal] because Mohamed Salah would have been around him. It's a two-versus [Kasper] Schmeichel situation, if that's not a real chance and goalscoring situation then I don't know.
"But again, Leicester had chances and they had nothing to do with the situation around that, it's a ref thing and we now have to accept the result, which is no problem."
Liverpool's lead at the top could be reduced to two points before their next game at West Ham, with City playing before them.
It means the champions have the chance to apply some pressure in the title race, but Klopp insists his focus remains firmly on matters in his control.
"We have a point more than before," he added. "That's not exactly what we wanted to have but still everything is fine.
"I know at the moment I don't think anybody further was injured, which helps us obviously a lot and now we have a few days to prepare West Ham and then we go again, and then Bournemouth and we go again and all that stuff.
"That's what we're doing, not counting points and hoping for gaps between us and other teams. We have to win our football games.
"That didn't happen tonight and so we are not happy about that. I don't see it like we've dropped points.
"We take what we get and tonight it's a point and it's more than we had before the game so that's fine. Is it that I'm now overly happy? No, of course not, we wanted to win that game."
