1 year ago
177 Tottenham beat Liverpool 2-1 at the weekend, and to say that they won in controversial circumstances would be an understatement.
Indeed, Spurs’ victory over the Reds has been called into question after Luis Diaz’s disallowed goal was proven to be the result of an incorrect decision, and the VAR disaster that occurred has been nothing short of a media circus since then.
Jurgen Klopp has now called for the game to be replayed, and, as you can imagine, the footballing world is now hotly debating whether or not the match should be rebooted in order to give a more fair result.
Klopp may be calling for a replay on this occasion, but, in our view, there’s absolutely no way this should happen.
Yes, the decision was terrible, but the frustrating reality is that these things happen in football, and it’s not as though Klopp hasn’t been on the other end of these decisions in the past.
In fact, Klopp himself has admitted on two occasions that his team has benefitted from dodgy offside decisions, and on neither occasion has he offered or ordered a replay.
Klopp’s past admissions
Klopp has spoken about offside calls in his favour on two occasions, once against Fulham and once against West Ham.
In fact, during the Fulham game he even said ‘Fulham cannot change it’ after a dodgy offside call, which, in light of current events, seems a bit hypocritical.
“In the end we were a bit lucky and maybe because of Robbo it is not 100 per cent offside because of his heel. We cannot change it, Fulham cannot change it,” Klopp said.
“Apart from scoring more goals it was a really good performance. Fulham always have the quality to cause problems. We had to work hard, we won it. All good.”
Klopp said similar against West Ham back in 2019 when he admitted his team had scored an offside goal without offering up a replay.
“Obviously, our goal was offside,” he said. “I didn’t know that in the game and at half-time nobody told me, I didn’t ask.
“After the game, our analysts told me immediately. They scored a goal, we scored an offside goal.
“Apart from that, it’s a game where if Divock [Origi] scores the late goal then that would be a lucky moment. But the point is absolutely deserved.”
No replay?
This just serves to highlight why Klopp’s replay argument right now is absurd.
These are just two incidents where Liverpool benefitted from an offside call, and did Klopp offer to replay those games at the time? Of course not.
It’s frustrating, and the manner of this offside decision being wrong is unprecedented, but it all falls under the same category, human error.
There are some things in football that you just have to accept, sometimes you’ll be on the wrong end of a decision, sometimes you won’t. Liverpool got to a Champions League final in 2005 off the back of a ghost goal, and they won the 2001 FA Cup final after a ridiculous handball by Stephane Henchoz was missed. These things can happen.
It’s annoying, we can understand why Klopp is upset, but he should know better than anyone. That’s football.
The post 'Cannot change it': Jurgen Klopp has made two past comments that completely ruin his Spurs replay argument appeared first on TBR Football.
