Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp branded “an idiot” by West Brom’s James McClean

Having appeared to avoid a handshake with West Brom boss Tony Pulis, Klopp led his team in a celebration akin to a title win as they saluted the noise that greeted their efforts in the closing stages.

“This moment was an explosion and it was the best atmosphere since I’ve been here”. On Thursday we played on ice, today against a wall. We scored one and were unlucky not to score another one and that could have changed the game in five minutes. It felt like three.

According to former Liverpool manager Gerard Houllier, his discussions with Jürgen Klopp over the years have made it clear that the German has always been a big fan of the club.

There followed a sour incident as Dejan Lovren was carried off on a stretcher with his leg in a brace after a challenge by Gardner, who followed through and caught the centre-back on the knee. It was like this the whole game, on the edge of everything. “We showed great resilience and worked really hard and to get done with a deflected goal in injury time is really disappointing for the players”.

“Everything could have happened in this situation but hopefully we’ll have more luck than in previous situations (with injured players)”.

‘I’ve got to be honest and say we’ll have to see. “I can say nothing”, he said.

Klopp refused to criticise Gardner for his challenge.

He said: “I said to Simon at half-time, if somebody says it was your fault, it is not true, it is my fault”.

“I like what Jurgen said, “I am not going to sign anybody”, added Houllier.

“That’s how we play and that’s how we’ve played all season”.

I think some people have mis-read his motives for doing it. It wasn’t so much celebrating the result, as thanking the fans; and that is something I believe has been sorely missing from Liverpool, as well as from the majority of other clubs including Newcastle.

“I’ve no problems whatsoever”, said Pulis. And throughout the 90 minutes they had just the two efforts on target, which typically came from them piling in on our six-yard box at set pieces, which we fell for.

“There’s two challenges we are very disappointed with, the [James] Milner challenge on Gardner, where it looks a very poor challenge, and then Skrtel’s challenge on Rondon”, Pulis continued. “If he didn’t play the ball, we don’t have to talk about this”.

If the reaction of the Anfield crowd – and a poll on the Liverpool Echo website – is anything to go by, he might have stuck the right chord.

West Brom also had a Jonas Olsson goal correctly adjudged offside, although it was ruled out in odd circumstances.