Frustrated Klopp Questions Mitrovic Penalty in Liverpool Draw

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has questioned the decision to award a penalty against Virgil van Dijk in their opening 2-2 draw with newly promoted Fulham on Saturday.

The Reds were forced to come from behind twice with goals from Darwin Nunez and Mohamed Salah after a double to Aleksandar Mitrovic.

Mitrovic won a 72nd-minute penalty after jinking his way into the box and going down upon apparent slight contact from a lunging van Dijk.

Replays suggested the contact was minimal, if there was any at all, but the video assistant referee did not intervene and Mitrovic converted the spotkick.

“Was it a penalty? I heard he touched the ball,” Klopp told reporters.

“I said the result is the best news. Was it a foul on Hendo before the first goal? I sit here and talk about… I have to and that’s my only concern.

“Yes, the result side is very important for us obviously and I would love to get three points, but I would have loved much more to play really good and we didn’t do that.

“That’s why I’m now in the mood I’m in. It is my responsibility to find out why we played last Saturday a really good game, a surprisingly good game for the moment we are in in the pre-season, and then seven days later we looked like completely upside down.

“That doesn’t make sense and that’s my responsibility.”

Klopp rated his frustration at the game as “12” out of 10, labelling the performance as a “defeat”.

“The result is not a defeat but the performance was a defeat and that’s why we have to figure out what happened,” he said.

“It can happen. And again, if we win today and dont learn anything from the game, much worse than getting a point and learn the right things I’m fine with that.

“That’s what we are working on now. That’s not us today, it was not us today. I dont want to take anything away from Fulham.

“We played a really bad game and get a point, so that’s all a truth as well. But playing the way we played is not how we should play and thats why my frustration about that is pretty high.”