Jurgen Klopp couldn’t believe how many fouls the referee missed during Liverpool’s loss against Brentford last night.
The Reds succumbed to a chastening 3-1 defeat in West London, as their four-game winning streak was brought to an end. On the balance of play, it was a fair result. Liverpool just couldn’t cope with Brentford’s physicality from set-pieces and were punished accordingly.
But, speaking to Sky Sports via LFCTV after the game, Klopp suggested that he wasn’t best pleased with referee Stuart Atwell’s monitoring of the Bees corners in particular.
“I am not sure you can control it all the time because each corner is a massive threat,” admitted the Liverpool boss. “Before the game we said that is really difficult to deal with, especially as they stretch through us in this moment, full body contact.
“There was only one offensive foul signalled in these moments tonight and that was against us, which is really funny!”
Unfortunately, Klopp’s comments serve as an insight into Liverpool’s mentality all evening yesterday. They were outfought and outmuscled, forever waiting for a referee’s whistle that was never going to arrive.
Klopp defending the undefendable
This is a little disappointing to hear from Jurgen. Rather than point to the referee’s managing of the situation, the Liverpool manager should be looking at the way he set his team up to defend Brentford’s set-pieces.
Having already been caught out once, Liverpool didn’t learn from their mistakes at all.
The sight of Yoane Wissa bringing down a corner ball on his chest around eight-yards from goal summed up the whole farce. How can you allow a striker to do that? In so many years of watching football, I’m not sure we’ve ever seen that before.
Brentford only had four corners during the game, but it felt like 10 times that amount. Liverpool didn’t deal with a single one effectively.
In fairness to the Reds, Ibrahima Konate’s own goal was the first goal they’ve conceded from a corner all season. It was going to happen eventually. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do about that. But last night didn’t look like one of those occasions.
Of course, Klopp knows what he’s doing here. His aim is always to take the heat from his players in the immediate aftermath of a poor performance. But still, his comments nicely encapsulate the flimsy mentality Liverpool displayed on the pitch last night.
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