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Jurgen Klopp lashes out at the question of Luka Modric after an embarrassing loss to Real Madrid.
During Liverpool’s 5-2 loss to Real Madrid at Anfield, Jurgen Klopp became agitated when a reporter questioned him about Luka Modric.
In the first leg of their Champions League round of 16 match, the Reds went up 2-0 after just 14 minutes, but a brace from Vinicius Junior erased the lead before halftime.
Two minutes after the break, Real Madrid scored once more through Eder Militao, and then Karim Benzema scored twice on his own to hand Liverpool their worst-ever loss at Anfield in the top tournament of Europe.
Real Madrid’s Modric and Vinicius were the stars of the show, and Klopp did not appreciate being grilled by the Spanish media about the duo following the match.
When asked whether Vinicius is one of the best players in the world, Klopp responded with a curt “yes.” After being questioned about whether Modric deserves a new contract at Madrid following his performance at Anfield, he suddenly grew even more upset.
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“Oh God,“ said the Liverpool manager. “You obviously are not too much interested in my problems, so this is not one of my problems. Yeah, fantastic player and I’m pretty sure Carlo [Ancelotti] and Real Madrid will do the right thing for the right player.”
Klopp had a lot of positives to take away from the evening, particularly the way his players started the game and their general first-half performance, despite the lopsided loss.
“Everything was pretty obvious tonight I think,” he said. “We gave all five goals away. All five. That means we could have done better there, but they were all obviously different. The start of the game, in our situation where we are, it’s really important that we see positive steps and I think the first half was pretty much – besides the two goals we conceded – the best we’ve played probably in the whole season. So I liked that a lot.”
However, Klopp accepted that his team played into the hands of Los Blancos in the second half and was not happy with his defenders, as he added: “The second half the game was the game Real Madrid wanted to play. Both the other goals they scored, one is deflected and they weren’t really well defended to be honest. We lost the ball in the wrong moment, which is obviously a massive problem against Real Madrid with the counter-attacking threat they have and that’s how it gave the result and that’s it.”
Before their match against Crystal Palace in the Premier League on Saturday, the Reds will want to rapidly regroup. Real Madrid, on the other hand, can’t afford to sit back and celebrate since they have a La Liga rivalry match against Atletico Madrid scheduled for the same day.