It could have been the perfect excuse for Liverpool- 'oh our best player on the field,- Saido Mane received a red card'...
but Jurgen Klopp's men only have themselves to blame after Pep Guardiola's Man City thrashed them 5-0 on Saturday at the Etihad Stadium. It's Jurgen Klopp's biggest humiliation (with no consolation goal) since joining the Kop.
Joel Matip fired a long ball overhead, which fell between the Liverpool's player of the month, Saido Mane and new Manchester City goalkeeper Ederson, both rushed towards it fancying they’d reach it first, but with Mane's eyes on the ball, he rose up his foot towards Ederson,injuring the goalkeeper in the process. What many pundits thought will be a yellow card, even though Ederson was stretchered off, resulted in a sending off for the Senegalese winger, and Liverpool after that moment, never recovered!
Sergio Aguero, Gabriel Jesus and substitute Leroy Sane fired goals in rampant fashion, to push Manchester City to second position in the table, and make pundits wonder if Liverpool have the defence to survive a long Epl campaign coupled with Champions League football.
Liverpool head coach, Jurgen Klopp, speaking after the match, said;
"It was, in a lot of moments, very unlucky for us but I don't think we have to think too much about luck or something like this because we cannot change luck, but we can change performance,"
"I know it's difficult after the international break because they played in different positions, had different jobs to do, different systems and all that stuff, so it's always difficult, but I thought we should have been in the lead in the first half. At 1-0 it was 11 versus 11 and it was a moment when we were in possession, everything was good.
"I know we can be really good, so after we have spoken about this I will try to help the boys to ignore the result today -- not the mistakes we did -- but the result because it's already done.
"We should have scored, we should have had more chances. Mo [Salah] was three or four times on the touchline in the 18-yard box, or even in the six-yard box, and you have to find someone, but nobody was at the front post, nobody.
"Yes, with one man down against City, it is really not the best place to be, but we do it a lot of training -- we defend with only seven players against 14.
"It was difficult, but we could have done better in the second half. I am not concerned about this. It was a hard lesson today, but I know the boys are good enough and we will learn from it.
"What we also need to learn from the first half is that we need to influence the game in another direction, we need to score here. I think everyone saw it, so it was obviously obvious."
"[It was] an accident, [a] very unlucky situation," Klopp said. "Everybody knows Sadio didn't see the goalie, so it was not one second he had a look at the goalie or whatever. He just wanted to get the ball as soon as possible. That's what happened.
"It was a red card and we cannot change it anymore. Hopefully the goalie is not seriously injured. I think in the first moment when all the people were on the pitch, it looked like this. After the game he was running around in the dugout, so hopefully not too serious.
"[Mane is] very, very, very upset. We couldn't keep him up. He was shocked about the situation and -- I'm sure also -- about the decision.
"If the leg is not where the leg is you can also say it's a foul from the goalie. What can I say? It's a red card and I'm sure people will find enough reasons to say it was the right decision, so we cannot change it anymore. Of course it had a big influence on the game."
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