Jurgen Klopp has explained the touchline bust-up between him and Mikel Arteta when Arsenal faced Liverpool yesterday.
Both managers clashed after Sadio Mane appeared to have taken out Takehiro Tomiyasu while both players went for a ball.
Arteta probably thought the Liverpool man deserved a yellow card for his part in the coming together.
However, Klopp didn’t think so and the German manager was furious because he thought Mane was being targeted for a caution.
After the game, he explains he has had to substitute the Senegalese attacker in a previous match because the opponents were targeting him to be sent off.
Klopp said as quoted by The Daily Mail: ‘We had to take Sadio (Mane) off against Atletico Madrid because Atletico only went for that, to get him a yellow card and I have to take him off and all this kind of thing and it’s just not okay.
‘I have to say the ref did really well in that situation, I know I deserved a yellow card it’s no problem. If there’s a harsh challenge, we are all like this, but it was nothing.
‘He didn’t even touch him. It was just two players going in the air and then they jump and that was not okay and that’s what I said.’
Just Arsenal Opinion
There was a lot riding on this game and it was no surprise to see the managers clash and no doubt a good number of Arsenal fans were happy to see Arteta stand his ground.
That said, there will be some, myself included, that feel that Arteta showed his inexperience and all he achieved was to rile up the Anfield crowd which was actually quiet at that point.
Regardless, it added some spice and that is always entertaining.
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