Jurgen Klopp says he is unconcerned about the prospect of Erling Haaland receiving retrospective punishment in the same way Virgil van Dijk did after his sending off at Newcastle.
Haaland was angry on Sunday evening as Manchester City were held to a 3-3 draw with Tottenham Hotspur at the Etihad with the Norway international incensed that referee Simon Hooper had refused to play an advantage from his pass to Jack Grealish late in the game.
The centre-forward later tweeted the acronym ‘wtf’ in response to a clip of the incident and it’s been claimed the City forward could come in for punishment from the Football Association as a result of the outburst.
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Van Dijk was fined £100,000 and given an extra game ban for his reaction to being dismissed at Newcastle back in August and some have questioned whether Haaland might also see a similar fate for his post-match frustrations.
Klopp, though, is uninterested in seeing the Premier League’s 14-goal top scorer banned for City, despite the obvious benefits for Liverpool.
“I don’t know,” Klopp said. “In most of the years the thing Virgil said no one would have recognised. [He said] ‘F****** joke’ wasn’t it? I have no idea exactly what Haaland said, I didn’t follow it.
“It is like it is. To be honest I didn’t think for a second about it, when I heard about it, it wasn’t ‘oh we get it, they don’t.’ As long as you are not emotionally involved it is much easier to accept it, in the heat of the moment it is more difficult. They would have probably thought about it and I have no opinion on the outcome.”
Klopp also reiterated the likelihood of Joel Matip’s knee injury being a serious one as the Reds await the results of a scan after his withdrawal in Sunday’s 4-3 win over Fulham.
He added: “When the doctor comes in and says ‘it doesn’t look great’ [we fear the worst] but we have to wait for the scans and the scan isn’t here yet.
“So you can imagine it doesn’t look great. It is never good news [when the doctor says that]. I’ve never had that in all my years where someone says: ‘Oh my God, [the initial diagnosis of an injury] is completely wrong, there’s nothing wrong, he can play tomorrow.’ It doesn’t happen.”
Olivia Martin is a dedicated sports journalist based in the UK. With a passion for various athletic disciplines, she covers everything from major league championships to local sports events, delivering up-to-the-minute updates and in-depth analysis.
