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Losing valuable ground in a top four dogfight for Champions League places can put anyone in a bad mood. Doing so against a side who as a team have scored less goals than Mohamed Salah will you make one downright unpleasant.
Jovial teddy bear though he is, Liverpool manager, Jürgen Klopp found himself in such a state over the course of a staid 1-0 capitulation to relegation strugglers, Swansea City. With the host’s Alfie Mawson capitalizing on a defensive error to sweep home on 40 minutes, a Swans fan near the Liverpool bench seized the opportunity to heckle the Reds boss for the rest of the match.
At one point in a frustrating second half, an annoyed Klopp turned to the fan and engaged in a verbal confrontation that fortunately did not escalate past a few exchanged words.
”[The fan] was shouting at me all the time and I reacted once,” Klopp admitted in his post-match conference.
”I must remind myself I’m a human being and not just a professional manager who takes that all the time.
”They can say whatever they want, at one point I turned to him and said, ‘Please!’
”It was only one moment when I had enough, it wasn’t to do with the fact we were 1-0 down. I’m sure I am not the first manager who has had a problem with him there, he must be a season ticket holder.
”It was my fault as well. I should not react, but I didn’t say anything bad. I just showed I wasn’t happy about what he was saying.”
After spending the week on a high after knocking the presumptive league champions in Manchester City off their invincible perch a scant eight days prior, the disappointing loss has brought the 4th-placed Merseysiders back to earth.
“Last week [against Man City] feels like half a year ago, don’t worry about that,” the 50-year-old added.
”We had enough time obviously. What can we do? We spoke about it before, there would be a lot of challenges, playing against top of the table then bottom of the table.
”Everyone is talking very positive, fantastic football, the training week was outstanding. You think ‘Wow, everything is fantastic’, we knew about that.
”We talk about tactical discipline and everybody thinks it’s about defense, that’s right, it’s a big part, but as well it’s offensive things, especially when you are a possession team like we are in a game like this. It’s clear where you start, where you have to be in each moment.
”It’s not mathematics, but it’s clear where we can cause them problems. Swansea knows to win this game today they needed our help and unfortunately we helped them.
“It’s not that we threw it away. Swansea are fighting for their life and we’ve no problem with that. We had a problem with our offensive motions. It’s not what we came here for, we have nothing, and that’s our fault.”