Jurgen Klopp says Liverpool's controversy-filled 2-2 draw with Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday was "massively influenced" by the officials, believing referee Jon Moss wanted to be "in the middle of interest."

Harry Kane's controversial penalty in the 95th minute cancelled out Mohamed Salah's late strike to earn Spurs a point at Anfield.

Moss initially ignored Spurs' claims for a late penalty when Erik Lamela went down from Virgil van Dijk's challenge inside the 18-yard box, until his assistant, Eddie Smart, raised his flag to indicate a foul had been committed.

Earlier in the second half, Kane had missed a penalty when Liverpool goalkeeper Loris Karius had been ruled to have taken the Premier League's top scorer down. After a discussion between the referee and the linesman, it was ruled Dejan Lovren's touch on the ball in the build-up ensured Kane was onside when he advanced through on goal and so the penalty stood before being saved by Karius.

"It was clear, two sides high quality who wanted to win desperate, obviously. That made the game. But the result was massively influenced by, I would say, linesman decisions," Klopp told Sky Sports after the game. "That's it. How always, we have to take it. That's how it is."

When asked whether he had received an explanation from the referee, the Liverpool manager replied: "When did you ever hear [that]? I'm not allowed to go into the room until half an hour after the game, so how?

"Do you think he comes to me and say: 'Sorry, I made a mistake for the first penalty?' Because it was clear offside. I don't know what they were discussing, to be honest. And the second one, yes, Virgil van Dijk touched him, but we all know Lamela wants the touch. That's the situation.

"They will explain it with the touch, but we all know. There were so many hard fouls, especially in the first half, which we didn't get any free kicks in these situations. It was always like 'come on, go and play.' That was obviously the level for the game today. That's OK.

"Then a situation like that in the last minute. Wow. You need to be sure or leave it, but he obviously wanted to be in the middle of interest. Now he is. I cannot change that."

Salah opened the scoring in a frantic game inside three minutes before netting his second goal in injury time to put Liverpool 2-1 up.

Victor Wanyama scored a long long-range equaliser in the 80th minute, with Spurs awarded their first penalty of the day four minutes later, only for Karius to save Kane's spot-kick that time around.

Liverpool were unable to build upon their positive first-half performance and Klopp feels it is not possible to control fifth-place Tottenham for an entire match.

"How can you be in complete control against Tottenham?" he added. "We had fantastic moments. We had fantastic situations. They had to chase the game because we scored an early goal.

"We could have defended better in a few moments, half spaces, the midfield was a little bit difficult. But we created a lot of chances against them, we had really crosses, big chances, to be honest.

"But can you control the game against Tottenham [for] 90 minutes? I don't think [so]. Their quality is too high. I think nothing, to be honest. It's just hard to accept all the decisions today."

Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino, though, saw nothing contentious in the two penalties and believes his team were unfortunate not to come away with all three points.

Pochettino told the BBC's Match of the Day: "It was an amazing game to watch. I was calm, because I think the team plays so well. The feeling is we dropped two points. We were much, much, much better than Liverpool.

"Both were a penalty and nothing to say, it is not controversial -- it is nothing. Sometimes people complain about the referee, but when they are right it is good to tell everyone.''

Wanyama's thunderous strike -- a piledriver that flew into the top left corner -- left Pochettino purring.

He added: "It was a fantastic goal -- it was the plan, no! -- I am so happy because he helps the team to achieve one point.''

Source:
courtesy of ESPNFC

by Glenn Price

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