Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp stated that “it’s like we’re going back 10 to 15 years” as he urged the Premier League to protect players by reconsidering rule changes.
During Saturday’s 2-0 win over Burnley, Klopp was dissatisfied with a number of challenges. Before the start of the new season, clubs were told that officials would not penalize them for “trivial things” in order to allow games to flow more smoothly.
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While speaking to BT Sport, Klopp said, “If you like that sort of thing, watch wrestling.” Despite Burnley conceding 12 free kicks, referee Mike Dean did not issue any yellow cards at a sold-out Anfield on Saturday.
The German football manager was irritated by challenges from Ashley Barnes and Chris Wood, and he wondered if the rule changes were having an adverse effect on the game.
Klopp said, “We always had to be ready for a proper fight and we were today. You saw these challenges with Ashley Barnes and Chris Wood and Virgil van Dijk and Joel Matip.
I’m not 100% if officials are going in the right direction with these decisions.
“It’s like we’re going 10 to 15 years backward. The rules are like they are, but you cannot defend these situations.
The message now is let the game flow, but nobody exactly knows what that means. This is the football we want to see but it’s just too dangerous.”
Liverpool made it two Premier League wins in a row thanks to an 18th-minute Diogo Jota header and an impressive second-half Sadio Mane strike, and Klopp is thankful his players escaped unscathed.
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“I like decisions that favor the offensive team, that’s fine. But we have to stick to protecting the players. We cannot deny that. In a lot of moments, we played a brilliant game without scoring.
“In all the other moments, we had to fight incredibly hard. We won it and nobody got injured,” Jurgen Klopp added.
