It’s fair to say that Jurgen Klopp was not impressed after Liverpool’s win over Sheffield United last night.
It wasn’t his team’s performance that was upsetting Jurgen, though. The Reds weren’t brilliant at Bramall Lane, but they got the job done.
Instead, Klopp was angered by a little quip made by Amazon Prime presenter Marcus Buckland during his post-match interview. With Buckland claiming that Liverpool were playing at the manager’s ‘favourite time’ of 12.30 again on Saturday, Jurgen went off.
“That’s great, that’s really great to make a joke about that,” said the 56-year-old, before accusing the presenter of being ‘disrespectful.’ As you can imagine, Klopp’s little show of irritation has rubbed all the usual suspects up the wrong way. Known to have a long-running one-way feud with the Liverpool manager, TalkSPORT pundit Gabriel Agbonlahor has unsurprisingly been quick to pipe up.
“Big baby isn’t he,” Agbonlahor claimed. “It’s okay when he wants to make a joke about things. The poor presenter is having a little joke about it. Liven up Jurgen, liven up you big baby.
“They’re quite touchy aren’t they these managers. Pep [Guardiola] had a go at [Gary] Neville, [Jamie] Carragher, [Micah] Richards. Roy Hodgson, Klopp. I feel like presenters now they don’t know when they can have a joke with these managers. They’re so touchy.”
Agbonlahor hits out at Klopp
In fairness, we can see both sides of this. While there’s no need to call Jurgen a ‘baby,’ or anything like that, he perhaps didn’t need to jump down Buckland’s throat quite so much.
Klopp himself had recently joked that he’s decided to no longer comment on his side’s constant 12.30 scheduling.
“I love playing at 12.30, that’s my new attitude!” the manager declared in his pre-Manchester City press conference last month.
Buckland’s comment here was likely as a result of that, and although Klopp was obviously being sarcastic, it should have been taken light-heartedly last night.
But then again, the German has just seen one of his players succumb to a season-ending ACL injury.
Player welfare is right at the heart of Klopp’s issue with his team playing so many early kick-offs. He has long banged the drum that too much is expected of players in this sport.
Having also just seen Alexis Mac Allister go down with an issue that could rule him out of Saturday’s game, perhaps Jurgen should be excused for not seeing the funny side.
What can certainly be concluded is that Agbonlahor is not well-placed to comment on such things. The former Aston Villa striker seems intent on getting a rise out of Klopp though, so will continue about this kind of business. When he does get the retort he wanted, no doubt he’ll be the first to be upset.
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