Liverpool narrowly defeated the Premier League’s bottom side Sheffield United, with goals from Virgil van Dijk and Dominik Szoboszlai giving them a 2-0 win.
Jurgen Klopp was not happy with a presenter’s joke about Liverpool’s early kick-off times and called him disrespectful.
Liverpool’s good form continued on Wednesday evening as they narrowly defeated Sheffield United in their Premier League clash at Bramall Lane. The Reds were huge favourites to defeat the Premier League’s bottom side, who were coming off a humiliating 5-0 defeat to Burnley a few days prior.
But, despite the contrasting fortunes between the two sides this season, Liverpool didn’t have things all their own way in South Yorkshire. It took 37 minutes for Jurgen Klopp’s side to break the deadlock as Virgil van Dijk expertly tucked home a corner from Trent Alexander-Arnold.
Liverpool had much of the play for the remainder of the game but they struggled to add to their advantage. They finally clinched all three points in the fourth minute of stoppage-time when Dominik Szoboszlai found the top corner after some good work from Darwin Nunez.
Darwin Nunez gave some back to Sheffield Utd fans after chaotic assist
Jurgen Klopp snaps at reporter in post-match interview
Klopp would have been ecstatic with the victory, but he wasn’t all smiles in his post-match interview with Amazon Prime Video Sport. The German manager was not impressed at all with comments made by the presenter.
It’s no secret that Klopp is not a fan of matches which start at 12:30pm on a Saturday. He has vented his frustration multiple times at Liverpool having to play at that time slot right after an international break, most recently in November.
Liverpool’s next match will once again be on Saturday at 12:30pm, when they travel to South London to take on Crystal Palace. Referencing the match, the presenter joked that it was his ‘favourite kick-off time’. That did not go down well at all with Klopp, who bit back:
“That’s really brave to make a joke like that. Really. Now we go home and we play again. We will recover and then go again.
“Crystal Palace played tonight as well so that’s absolutely fine. You don’t understand it as well even when you work in football so why should I try to explain it again. If you make a joke about that you are just completely ignorant.”
The presenter then tried to defend himself and said he wasn’t trying to be disrespectful. Klopp wasn’t having any of it as he replied:
“You were [disrespectful] already. You can say what you want. But I can’t say what I want because that would be very different.”
Liverpool have won both of their games to start the month and are now second in the Premier League. Speaking after the game, Van Dijk stated his happiness at the progress his side was making. He said, per Liverpool’s official website:
“Listen, we are in December and there are so many games to come. Unfortunately, the other day we lost Joel Matip and we are all devastated by that. That’s a sign as well; we have so many injuries going around in world football, it’s something we have to look at as well.
“For us now, it’s a good start to December and we have plenty of big games to come and we should all look forward to it. I’m definitely looking forward to each and every one of them. We need the whole squad. To see what we have at the moment, and hopefully players coming back will definitely help in contributing hopefully to success.”
