Klopp Questions Lack of Penalties For Liverpool

Long gone are the days of Liverpool being known as Penaltypool for the convenient way that they picked up those fouls in the box and opportune moments — usually thanks to Luis Suarez twisting defenders into pretzels in front of their own goals. This season, Liverpool have seen a distinct lack of penalties awarded to them, with several referee decisions going against them.

The most recent example of this was against Stoke City, when Andre Marriner chose not to call a handball in the box against Erik Pieters. In that nil-nil draw, that non-call had a huge effect on the result.

After the disappointing match result, Klopp spoke about his growing frustration of this trend.

“Look again, look at how many penalties. Tottenham have had more penalties at Anfield than we have,” he said, referring to the two spot kick awarded to Spurs on their visit.

“We constantly have the ball, we are constantly in the box. We don’t dive. We don’t do all these things. I don’t know why it is like this. If I look back there have been 10 or 11 situations when people have said afterwards (that Liverpool might have had a penalty). If you then see the experts talking about it and they still are right and we only think ‘really?’

“There’s always a reason to explain it – somebody will find an explanation for it not being a handball; no the arm is not here... but the James Milner situation against Roma, that was handball and even then people said it unbelievable.

“I cannot judge, I change it, I take it, we play the next game.”