‘I forgave him’… Jurgen Klopp names the former Man City player he really should ‘hate’

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Over Jurgen Klopp’s time as Liverpool manager, plenty of opposing players have given him reason to dislike them.

When you’re in charge of a top club for as long as Klopp has been, then you’re bound to make yourself a few enemies along the way.

One of the more prominent of these over the years was former Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany. The Belgian was the scorer of one of the more famous Premier League goals of recent history – his screamer for City against Leicester virtually secured them the title, one point ahead of Liverpool in 2019.

It was a painful, painful moment for Reds fans, who were desperately hoping for Pep Guardiola’s side to drop points heading into the final game of the season. Not to be. But as Klopp prepares to lock horns with Kompany again tomorrow for Liverpool vs Burnley, he told his pre-match press conference that he holds no grudge against the 37-year-old.

“I forgave him that for a long time,” said the Reds boss. “There are plenty of players I should hate, Arjen Robben is one of them but I don’t. Same with Vincent Kompany. I believe there were other situations in that season I thought were more influential than when he scored that goal.

“When I think about the situation, I still think Maddison should have blocked the shot. Vincent just tried to get rid of the ball and it ended up in the goal. Yeah, absolutely. Not that it’s not important, but yes I forgave him long ago.”

Klopp holds no Kompany grudge

You have to hand it to Jurgen for being able to go back and watch that goal to analyse who should or shouldn’t have blocked it.

For us, we never want to see it back for the rest of our days. It hurts just too much.

Quite how Liverpool lifted themselves just one day later to go out and beat Barcelona 4-0, we’ll just never know. That’s the magic of Klopp, truly.

Heading into that game against Barca, reeling from a 3-0 loss in at the Camp Nou a week before and Kompany’s dagger 24 hours earlier, how oh how did the Reds find it within their bodies.

Or maybe it was actually because of Kompany’s improbable strike that Liverpool were able to do what they did. Rather than take the air out of their sails it galvanised them to make sure it wasn’t all in vein.

Knowing the way Klopp likes to look at things, you can imagine that that may well be the spin he still puts on it. As a result, why wouldn’t he forgive the Burnley manager, perhaps he should even thank him.

If Kompany can somehow pull a result off for the Clarets at Anfield tomorrow, it would be interesting if Jurgen could remain so magnaimous.

City will certainly be cheering him on as they look to topple Liverpool in the Premier League table again.

For one last time as Reds boss, Klopp will hope to make sure that doesn’t happen. Not tomorrow.