Jurgen Klopp Addresses Liverpool's Red Card Woes: 'What Should I Tell the Players?'

 

Jurgen Klopp Addresses Liverpool's Red Card Woes: 'What Should I Tell the Players?'

Liverpool's manager, Jurgen Klopp, is pushing back against claims that his team is plagued by discipline issues, despite a notable surge in red cards, with four players being sent off in just eight games this season.

The most recent red card incident occurred when Liverpool faced Tottenham in late September. Diogo Jota received a marching order, and Curtis Jones had previously been dismissed in a 2-1 loss in north London, reducing Liverpool to nine players on the field. In August, Alexis Mac Allister was sent off during his Anfield debut in a 3-1 victory against Bournemouth. However, the suspension for the Argentina international was later rescinded after the club's appeal.

Virgil van Dijk, the Liverpool captain, also found himself being shown a red card in the 2-1 victory over Newcastle in September. Notably, Liverpool has witnessed as many dismissals between August and September this season as they had seen in over three and a half years prior to the start of this campaign.

Klopp is of the opinion that this sudden accumulation of red cards is a mere quirk related to early-season matches. He emphasized Liverpool's consistent good behavior by mentioning that his team has topped the Premier League's Fair Play table five times during his tenure.

Klopp stated, "If you want to have a look into it, you will see in my eight years here. I didn't look last year or the year before, but we were five or six times winners of the Fair Play competition – which is not a competition that awards a trophy but recognizes teams with the fewest yellow and red cards."

He went on to say, "I think two or three times we won that competition in Europe as well. We don't aim to hurt other players; we aim to win the ball. So, this year, we've had incidents like Virgil van Dijk's red card. What can I tell him? Could he have done things differently in the challenge? Probably, yes. Would he? Probably yes. But it's just a situation; it's not indicative of our playing style. Then, we had Mac Allister's incident, which was not a red card. We had Diogo Jota's case, which was also questionable as a red card, yet he was still suspended. Lastly, there's Curtis Jones's red card, which I'm certain should have been overturned. If that had happened, we would only have one red card, which was the one received by Virgil."

In summary, Jurgen Klopp is standing by his team, maintaining that the red cards are anomalies and not reflective of Liverpool's usual discipline. He expressed his frustration with recent VAR decisions, particularly regarding Diogo Jota's dismissal, and stressed that the team's intent is always to win the ball without resorting to overly aggressive tactics.