Jurgen Klopp was delighted with Liverpool’s 17th consecutive Premier League win (extending their club-record winning streak) and eighth on the trot this season, but he wasn’t happy with the way Mohamed Salah was treated by Leicester City at Anfield on Saturday.
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James Milner’s 95th minute penalty kick sealed the dramatic late win as Leicester fought back after Sadio Mane had given table-topping Liverpool the lead.
Speaking after the game, Klopp believed his side were deserved winners but fumed when talking about Hamza Choudhury launching into a touch tackle on Salah late in the game.
“It looked like they [Leicester] were fine with the draw. We were not. We saw that in the situation when we got the penalty, which was a clear penalty,” Klopp said. “But I stand here and I should be only happy because the way the boys did it, but I cannot get the Choudhury yellow card. I don’t get that. Really. He should know better. He has to calm down. You cannot only go for the man and you only get a yellow card. I don’t know how that works. You see Mo lying in the dressing room, and you think ‘wow, okay…'”
Asked if Salah was okay, Klopp launched in an attack on the treatment of one of his stars and said Liverpool are the fairest team in the Premier League.
“How can he be okay? He is limping off the pitch, how can he be okay? We don’t know (on an injury update). How should I know that,” Klopp said. “It is hard. Three years in a row I think we are the team with the lowest yellow cards, the fairest team, we don’t do those things. That is to slow Mo down. it is really not okay. We won the game, I think we deserved it because we were better for longer, Leicester is a superb team, they did really well in 30 minutes, but when our energy level went down. We had the first 60 minutes.”
Klopp’s side were the better team, just about, as Leicester never really got going and Liverpool were guilty of missing chances until Milner scored a 95th minute winner from the penalty spot.
Have Liverpool been lucky in tight wins this season and at the end of last season?
“Without luck you cannot win the number of games we won. That is clear,” Klopp said. “Over 90 minutes, or 95 minutes, it was deserved, Milly kept his nerves, obviously really cool and finished that situation off. Good.”
As the old saying goes, “it’s better to be lucky than good.”
Liverpool are both and as they chase their first league title in over 30 years, they sit pretty atop the Premier League table heading into the international break as they’ll at least have a five-point lead heading into mid October.
