Jurgen Klopp was keen to highlight an incident from Arsenal’s opening day defeat to Brentford last weekend, in calling into question the officiating throughout Liverpool’s meeting with Burnley this afternoon.
Reds cruise
Klopp’s men were of course back in action a short time ago.
The Reds welcomed Burnley to Anfield, for their 2nd outing of the new Premier League season.
Liverpool headed into proceedings as heavy favourites to make it two wins from two to start out the campaign, after making short work of Norwich City at Carrow Road last weekend.
And, when all was said and done on Merseyside this afternoon, another comfortable 3-point haul is precisely what was forthcoming for the hosts.
A dominant display saw Liverpool take a deserved lead inside 20 minutes, when Kostas Tsimikas’ whipped delivery from the left was nodded home in style by Diogo Jota.
And the matchup’s scoring was rounded out 20 minutes from time, when a flowing team move ultimately culminated in Trent Alexander-Arnold’s clever defence splitting pass being lashed home by Sadio Mane:
‘Watch wrestling’
Liverpool, on the back of today’s action at Anfield, now hold an early advantage atop the Premier League table.
As outlined above, however, speaking during his post-match interview this afternoon, the club’s boss was not exactly all smiles in his assessment of the 90 minutes of action.
Klopp was instead keen to draw attention to Burnley’s physical approach to proceedings, with Sean Dyche’s men having been guilty of no fewer than 12 fouls, not a single one of which resulted in a yellow card being brandished by referee Mike Dean.
The German, in turn, went on to highlight an incident from Arsenal’s shock 2-0 opening day defeat to newly-promoted Brentford, which saw fellow countryman Bernd Leno impeded in his efforts to prevent the Bees from doubling their advantage:
Such incidents, in Klopp’s view, must be clamped down on, in the best interest of ‘protecting the players’ involved: