Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp laughs off ‘soft German’ jibe

The Liverpool manager was incensed by a Jeremain Lens tackle on Mamadou Sakho that he thought should have produced a red card rather than a caution, though denied any residual ill-feeling with Allardyce or his Sunderland staff.

That prompted Allardyce to brand him a “soft German” after there was an angry exchange between the two benches, but Klopp has played the incident down.

He said: “I am not too sorry”.

Dortmund’s head coach Juergen Klopp waves his hat to say farewell to supporters after the German first division Bundesliga soccer match between BvB Borussia Dortmund and Werder Bremen in Dortmund, Germany, Saturday, May 23, 2015.

Klopp also responded to West Ham co-chairman David Sullivan’s claims that the London club tried to hire him last summer to replace Allardyce at the Boleyn Ground before appointing Slaven Bilic.

“But if you see the again, then you will know I was not wrong in my judgement of this”.

“Mama [Sakho] is still alive and everything is OK but in my opinion situations like this have to be judged different than other things, so if you compare yellow cards in a game and think “OK, this is yellow”, then what’s this?”

The Belgium striker, tightly marked in a goalless first half at the Stadium of Light, burst into action 22 seconds after the restart to bag his sixth goal of the campaign.

“We had to wait for the special moment and work for it, and that’s what we did”.

A win at Upton Park this Saturday could move Liverpool from their current place of seventh up to fifth depending on the results of Manchester United and Crystal Palace.

“It’s important that we stick together, regroup and just approach the game with the same intensity and hopefully we can get a little bit of luck”.

Sunderland must dust themselves down and bounce back quickly ahead of the biggest game of the season, insists Duncan Watmore.

Asked if Sakho had escaped serious injury in the incident, Klopp added: “I hope so, yes”.

“That’s Christian Benteke time”, Klopp told Sky Sports News.

Bilic’s men are one point behind us now in 7th, but with a tricky trip to Stoke and then matches with Arsenal and Manchester Unite coming up next – it’s crucial we carry on our recent good run.