Emotional Klopp concedes EPL title, questions VAR after Liverpool’s defeat to Leicester

LIVERPOOL manager Jurgen Klopp practically broke down in tears on Saturday night during his post-match press conference after his side’s 3-1 defeat to Leicester City at the King Power Stadium.

The German recently lost his mother and was unable to attend her funeral due to travel restrictions.

The combination of the big loss and his team’s defeat got him emotional as he gave up on retaining the Premier League title he led Liverpool to win last season.

“I don’t think we can close that gap this year, to be honest,” Klopp told the media. “We have to win football games and big parts of our football was today again really, really good. 

“We have to do it consistently. We have to avoid mistakes, we have to avoid misunderstandings. We cannot avoid mistakes of VAR or stuff like this, but all the rest that is in our hands we have to avoid. Today, in two situations we didn’t do that and that’s why they could score two goals. The rest of the football game is really good. Yes, if you win football games maybe you could score today more goals, but that’s the steps you have to make. “First, you have to perform again; the result is always massively related to the performance. And we were today good enough to win the game for a long, long period in the game, but not until the end because of a couple of things.”

Two moments stood out during the game, both of which led to goals against Liverpool.

First, a VAR (video assistant referee) check overturned the offside on James Maddison’s goal and made it 1-1. Second, a mix-up between goalkeeper Alisson Becker and new centre-back Ozan Kabak left a gaping net that Jamie Vardy tapped in to for Leicester’s second goal.

Klopp spoke about both incidents, disagreeing with the exact science of VAR’s offside lines.

“The misunderstanding we had – before the game, we all knew Ozan is a really good player,” he said. “And after the game we know that as well. But what we knew before the game, he is not really used to all the things we usually do. 

“When you play with Ali then you know he is quite offensive-minded and comes out of his goal. In this situation it was a misunderstanding, that can happen when you are new together. Usually these things happen in pre-season, we don’t have that. So that’s why it happened. That was the second goal. 

“The first goal is a strange situation which I think should have been, how I said, offside. We are not worrying or whatever about the title, we are not silly. 

“We have on Tuesday a tough game and then on Saturday again, a derby, so these are the things we are thinking about. We want to have still a good season in the end, we have to win.”

When directly asked if he was conceding the title, Klopp replied: “Yes, I can’t believe [the question], but yes.”