Jurgen Klopp was rather taken aback when he heard of Man City’s CL ban – and here’s his reaction.
“It was a shock when it came out. Completely, ‘Wow, what’s that’?” he told Sky Sports.
“I’m a football guy, I can only speak about football and what Pep has done since he was in England is exceptional.
“All the rest I have no idea. At the moment I can imagine it is really difficult for the sports people to understand.
“You believe the people you work for and then someone else sees it completely differently.
“I really feel for Pep and the players. It’s the first verdict, they will appeal and we will see what happens then.
“It’s obviously serious because UEFA would not react like that [otherwise]. The football City played was exceptional and is exceptional.”
Klopp further felt that Liverpool played extremely well against Norwich – with Sadio Mane finishing with a goal 12 minutes before time. According to him, Mane was fresh during the game.
“It was a difficult game for different reasons,” Klopp said. “The wind, the organisation of the opponent and the way we played in the first half.
“The distance between the line was too big, we were a little bit too early with our long balls in behind.
“That’s not exactly like how we wanted to do. The counter-press was not there because we did not press up.
“We had nice situations, good set pieces but not much more.
“We improved, Trent [Alexander-Arnold]’s positioning was higher. We were much more compact and could win the ball in the counter-pressing situations.
“Then we brought on Fabinho and Sadio – one was important for the organisation, gave Hendo [Jordan Henderson] the freedom to be more involved offensively, and Sadio was fresh and made the difference.”
