Jurgen Klopp says he deserved his yellow card from referee Szymon Marciniak - but claimed the Polish official found it difficult to cope as Liverpool were beaten by Atletico Madrid on Tuesday.
The referee cautioned Klopp in the second half as the Reds boss grew frustrated with what he deemed to be histrionics and play-acting from several Atletico players in their 1-0 win over the European champions at the Wanda Metropolitano.
“It was difficult for the referee to deal with the atmosphere tonight," Klopp said.
"I don't think the header was because of that, but a lot of other situations…after 30 minutes, three Atletico players were already on the ground without being injured.
"The ref just needs to feel that game a little bit more. The crowd wanted to help their team tonight. That makes it a very emotional game.
“I wasn't disappointed with the game, we have played much worse games. We had to try to be really calm. I liked a lot of parts of our game, but we have to be better in the final third. We have to try it."
On his own carding from Marciniak, Klopp added: “I deserved it. I was just shouting in the direction, no bad words, I was not swearing,
"I was just unhappy with the overall performance and in that moment it finally came out and the ref didn't like it too much. I can take that, I deserved the yellow card."
DieHardRed
402
Atletico players dived and won unfair free kicks. They shouldn’t of got the throw that lead to the corner (which they scored from), and they hand balled it when Salah was on the attack. But besides from that Atletico deserved to win and played well. They would’ve won 2-0 anyway if it wasn’t for Morata.