Jurgen Klopp refused to blame either Alisson Becker or Virgil van Dijk for the decisive mix-up that saw Arsenal take the lead in Liverpool’s 3-1 loss on Sunday.
With the game poised at 1-1 at the Emirates after Gabriel’s own goal had levelled up Bukayo Saka’s opener, the Reds fell behind when Alisson and Van Dijk failed to deal with a long ball over the top that led to Gabriel Martinelli putting the hosts ahead with a simple tap-in.
Neither were decisive in dealing with the danger with Van Dijk waiting for an Alisson clearance that never arrived when he failed to connect with the ball after 67 minutes.
And after Ibrahima Konate was sent off for two yellow cards for fouls on Kai Havertz, Leandro Trossard sealed the win in stoppage time to cut Liverpool’s lead at the top of the Premier League to two points after 23 games.
Klopp sidestepped the opportunity to bemoan his players’ indecision or point the finger for the second goal, labelling it a rare “misunderstanding” between the captain and the goalkeeper.
“We conceded a very strange goal,” Klopp said. “We have already spoken in the dressing room with all the people involved, it’s just unlucky. Can you hit the ball directly? Yes, but it flies strange.
“Should you expect that Martinelli brings the body a little bit, yes, but we didn’t and then all of a sudden, the ball rolls there and he has an easy goal.
“That doesn’t happen very often and will not happen very often but it has happened before and can happen. That made the job a bit more tricky. We will never know how it would have been had we not conceded the second goal.
“Our two main guns had a misunderstanding. It just shows they are human beings and that makes the things they usually do even more special. Sometimes you forget they are humans as well. They are not happy and we are not happy, 100%. But that’s it now. We had to make more of the game. Take it, deal with it, go from here.”
