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Football

06th Aug 2022

Jurgen Klopp slams ‘really bad’ Liverpool attitude after Fulham draw in Premier League opener

Daniel Brown

Jurgen Klopp

The German was not happy after the match

Jurgen Klopp did not hold back as he criticised his Liverpool side following their 2-2 draw with Fulham on the opening day of the Premier League season.

Liverpool found themselves 1-0 down against newly promoted side Fulham at half-time after Aleksandar Mitrovic headed home the opener in the 32nd minute. However, Klopp’s side levelled proceedings in the 64th minute through new signing Darwin Núñez.

The home side were then awarded a penalty after Virgil van Dijk tripped Fulham goalscorer Mitrovic inside the penalty area. The Serbian international dispatched his penalty with confidence, placing his spot-kick past Alisson.

Jurgen Klopp on pitches and attitudes

Klopp’s men once again drew level, with Mohamed Salah slotting home from close range to make it 2-2. It was the sixth time that the Egyptian has scored for the Reds on the opening day of the season. The home side were able to hold on and secured a draw.

Speaking to BT Sport after the match, Klopp said: “The best thing about the game is the result. A really bad game. How can that happen?

“The attitude was not right in the beginning. We tried to react after 15 minutes. The pitch was dry, stuff like this. Really difficult.”

“The result is fine, we don’t deserve more than that but the performance is massively improvable.”

When asked about what he said during his half-time team talk, Klopp appeared to imply he let rip at his players. “You can’t always hug the boys,” he admitted.

“We do that usually when they deserve it and the first half – it’s not that they didn’t but when you start a game the opposite of how we want to start it’s difficult.

“Everybody was under pressure, we couldn’t really break the lines. We never had momentum, we could have won the game as we had the bigger chances but that would have been too much.”

The Reds face off against Crystal Palace in their next top-flight match on August 15.

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