Jürgen Klopp's verdict on Reds' FA Cup exit
Jürgen Klopp admitted Liverpool deserved to be knocked out of the FA Cup after a below-par display against West Bromwich Albion at Anfield on Saturday evening.
The Reds were defeated 3-2 in their fourth-round tie, despite the fact they took an early lead through Roberto Firmino.
A quickfire brace from Jay Rodriguez put the visitors ahead by the 10th minute, before two decisions made with the assistance of the Video Assistant Referee went in Liverpool's favour.
First Craig Dawson saw a goal disallowed and then Mohamed Salah won a penalty after he was pulled back by Jake Livermore in the area. However, Firmino hit the crossbar with his spot-kick and the Baggies extended their advantage with a Joel Matip own goal in first-half stoppage time.
Salah pulled one back late on, but West Brom stood firm in the face of Liverpool pressure to secure their spot in round five.
Read on for a summary of Klopp's post-match press conference...
On his thoughts on the result and Liverpool’s performance…
In the decisive parts of the game around the goals it was poor. Bad defending. Bad defending most of the time means taking the wrong decision, but we scored a fantastic first goal. We go 1-0 up which is perfect in a game like this usually, but then it felt like it was a second later we conceded a goal. I think it was a minute, but if you take away the celebrations it was probably a second. Long ball but we win the first one, then open ball and we lose that challenge when we could have shot the ball somewhere, into the stand or whatever and then it’s done. We lose the second challenge as well and then the disaster starts, if you want, with the run of Rodriguez and a fantastic finish.
Second goal, similar; Rodriguez alone in the box, which makes absolutely no sense. We lose him in midfield, they pass the ball to the side, we don’t feel the responsibility in this situation obviously and then he can score a second one. The third one was unbelievable because it’s really easy to defend, you only have to push up then Dawson is 100 per cent offside, but he wasn’t. When you saw his celebration, it looked like ‘what can I do? If they leave me alone then I have to use the chance.’ Missing the penalty, not sure, probably would have helped, but we missed it and then we tried in the second half of course. We changed the system three or four times today. We scored late and then how it is in a game like this, we tried, we pushed, but in the end they defend, big hearts and try everything. They deserved it, to be honest. I don’t like to say it but it’s the truth, West Brom deserved it so compliments to Alan and his side.
On the use of VAR…
I think it is normal. Of course it will change things. Is it nice that West Brom celebrates a goal and then somebody tells them it’s not a goal? But I think it’s important, that’s actually what we always wanted – that if a goal should be disallowed, it should be disallowed. Usually in these two situations after the game we talk about it and I have to explain a defeat which maybe wasn’t deserved because we didn’t get a penalty and they scored another goal. It’s normal in the beginning that it takes a little bit longer, is it cool in January when it’s cold for the players especially, probably not. That will, I think, become a little bit smoother, a little bit more fluent in the future. But in the end, you ask me about it and I’ve said it already in plenty of interviews that if we have a Video Assistant Ref then Mr Hegazi was really lucky tonight that he ended the game on the pitch, it was a harsh, harsh, harsh challenge and if you have VAR and we talk about the game like a situation like that, then that’s obvious. I think it was not even a foul, that’s then of course strange, for sure not right, but that was not the reason we lost the game.
On what he said to the players after the game…
I had enough time to talk at half-time. After the game you all ask for me all the time, so it’s not that I go in [to the dressing room] and make proper analysis. To be honest I think it makes sense that I sleep another night on it, it makes it not better but it’s a few more hours to realise what really happened tonight. We had big aims in this competition, we wanted to show that at least that we really wanted to stay in this competition. So of course half-time was already time to talk about it. After the game I didn’t do it so far, but tomorrow we have to.
On looking to begin another lengthy unbeaten run at Anfield…
Yes, that would be a good idea. Look, it’s not the first game I’ve lost, it’s not the first game I’ve wanted to win really desperately and I lost it. They don’t stop feeling maximum average, it’s just a bad feeling. But it’s deserved, for me, for the boys, it’s deserved. I thought the crowd did really, really well. Obviously they remembered better the good performances here than we did and at the end they appreciated that we at least tried to sort our problems. That’s the job to do, you cannot go out there and be completely without a plan or an idea, you have to show up in a game like this, you need to be ready still, even if you make three big, big, big mistakes in the first half. You need to be ready to make mistakes again, but in an ideal world not in and around your own box. So yes, we should try but first we have to really think about what happened tonight and make ourselves ready for Huddersfield. A long run starts with the first game and that’s on Tuesday.