Reds boss Jurgen Klopp has informed reporters about what he felt about Ben Mee’s tackle on Joe Gomez during Liverpool’s encounter against Burnley on Wednesday.
Liverpool had to dig deep and come from behind as they continued their unbeaten run in the Premier League season with a 3-1 win over Burnley at Turf Moor on Wednesday. Despite the win, there was a dark cloud looming over Joe Gomez, who was forced and stretchered off the game just after 21 minutes with news later confirming that he would miss the remainder of the year. The England international has been integral to Liverpool’s great start this campaign and Klopp took a dig at referee Stuart Atwell for not taking proper action against some challenges made during the game.
Burnley manager Sean Dyche then was involved with Jurgen Klopp in a heated exchange at the full-time whistle when the 47-year-old English boss accused Liverpool forward Daniel Sturridge of cheating and diving. Klopp then went on to clarify that he was not referring to the tackle Ben Mee made that injured Gomez but some other instances.
Speaking to reporters, the 51-year-old German stated that a slide tackle is different when you block the ball or when you clear the ball without the player, “I didn’t speak about that tackle, I spoke about these kinds of tackles, and Slide tackles are all different. It’s one thing to block the ball; you clear the ball without taking the player. It’s possible you can slide in, take the ball and everything is fine.”
Klopp went on to explain that there were some challenges which deserved punishment but understood that no Burnley players wanted to injure Gomez, “The first one, Joe was close to the halfway line. If you tell me it’s necessary to go into a situation like that and Joe was already falling over, not because he wanted to, it happened. Then you saw the Bardsley challenge [on Alberto Moreno]. All of them endanger the other player a little bit. We all have a lot of respect for each other. For me, being aggressive is the readiness to hurt yourself and not the other player. I understand 100% that Mee did not want to injure Joe. Maybe that was the cleanest tackle of all. I knew after the game it would be like this. If you say an opinion, you’ve got to be ready to accept that a lot of people see it differently.”
Sometimes sliding challenges can be risky but the tackle that Mee made on Gomez was completely fair and in the laws of the game. It’s a big blow to Liverpool because he was very important in the heart of the defense and Liverpool need to keep the pace with Manchester City at the top of the table.
