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Photo by Marc Atkins/Getty Images
The Liverpool manager has a strained relationship with the official, who he believes has made a number of marginal calls in the past that have hurt his side.
On Wednesday, Liverpool take on Fulham in Premier League action, with the Reds looking to keep their faint top four hopes alive with a victory. At manager Jürgen Klopp’s pre-match press conference, though, Fulham wasn’t the main talking point.
Instead, it was the end of Sunday’s wild 4-3 victory over Tottenham that saw Spurs level in stoppage time before Liverpool scored an even later winner, with Klopp lashing out at the fourth official during the celebrations and at referee Paul Tierney afterwards.
“The whole situation shouldn’t have happened at all,” Klopp noted bluntly when asked about the incident on Sunday. “That’s how it is. But there’s a lot of emotion, a lot of anger in that moment, that’s why I celebrated the way I celebrated.
“There was a situation with a foul on Mo [Salah] but no foul called, not a free kick, and then they scored their goal but then a minute later we scored and you should be happy but I was still angry and shouting ‘without you’ which doesn’t even make a lot of sense.
“But that was all. That was it pretty much and then Paul Tierney came over and I didn’t expect a red card I expected yellow and he said to me for me it’s a red but he’s making it a yellow. We went inside, I tried to calm down but it didn’t work.
“Then the interviews and I opened that box, I stepped into it. How I felt in the moment about Paul Tierney, we have a history. I cannot deny that. Things happened in the past involving big games for us, even if they’re not intentional, so that feeling is there.”
Referee organizations and former officials have since come out hard against Klopp, and the expectation is that a touchline ban is almost inevitable given that as he alludes to this isn’t his first incident with the officials generally or Tierney in particular.
“I created headlines and I really regret that,” Klopp added when asked what he expects to come next. “It really wasn’t necessary so we’re expecting something because everybody is saying there will be something but we haven’t heard anything yet.
