Jurgen Klopp questions Chelsea's VAR goal: 'I don’t think I have the Liverpool glasses on my nose'

Liverpool FC via Getty Images
David Lynch26 September 2018

Jurgen Klopp questioned the VAR-aided decision to award a Chelsea equaliser after Liverpool were dumped out of the League Cup third round courtesy of a 2-1 defeat.

Having led thanks to an acrobatic Daniel Sturridge strike, the Reds were pegged back in the 79th minute as Emerson poked home a rebound after Ross Barkley’s header from an Eden Hazard set-piece delivery had been saved.

And the hosts’ hopes of progression were ended minutes later as Hazard snaked into the box before smashing home a brilliant goal to decide the tie.

Speaking in his post-match press conference, Klopp lambasted the decision to award the free-kick that led to Chelsea levelling and VAR’s failure to highlight an offside from the subsequent delivery.

In Pictures | EFL Cup third round

1/52

He said: “Both [situations] discussable. I don’t think it’s a foul. He plays the ball and then he touched afterwards, but things like that happen.

“We constantly touch each other with feet, with arms and stuff like that. Not all of that is a foul. It’s a clear ball and the linesman wanted to give a throw-in.

“That’s it’s a foul and then a yellow card is always strange. And then the situation, I didn’t see it in the game, of course, but when they started using the VAR I knew it was close, obviously.

“It was close, it was really close. I don’t think I have the Liverpool glasses on my nose, I would say it’s offside. That’s then how it is.

“You have two players that are clearly offside and they block. Not to forget, they don’t touch the ball. They block players, my players. That means a big impact in the situation.

“I don’t think you have to go to the ball. If you all can block when we are offside that would change set-pieces massively, to be honest.

“Then the one, Barkley makes the header and, for me, is offside as well - not much. But I don’t expect that the ref would see that.

Getty Images

“Then you have the VAR and then you have a look and it’s close. Why do you use it if you don’t want to make the decision then? That’s all. It was clear.

“I don’t feel bad, it was only unlucky. You have a free-kick that was maybe no free-kick. I think in a lot of situations nobody whistles it.

“And the other one, maybe in the future when you use VAR then you say: ‘OK, that’s offside’. I don’t expect using in situations like this, the VAR, to be honest.

“But if you use it, make a decision.”

AP

The German was seen remonstrating with Xherdan Shaqiri after the full-time whistle had blown but explained that the two were simply discussing the delivery of a late free-kick.

He added: “At 1-0, Shaq was completely alone in the box and maybe you will have to ask him why he didn’t shoot in that situation.

“I spoke about a free-kick - the last one. Mo was standing wide and a whole bunch of players was in one the direction where we shot the ball.

“If he could have played in Mo on a one on one situation in the last minute of the game it would have been not too bad. It was only about the free kick nothing else.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in