James Maddison has made a sly dig at Trent Alexander-Arnold over Liverpool’s demands to replay their defeat to Tottenham, as the duo met up for England duty.
Both Maddison and Alexander-Arnold have been included in Gareth Southgate’s squad for the Three Lions’ upcoming games against Australia and Italy. They were also both involved in the controversial clash between the Reds and Spurs.
Refereeing body the PGMOL were forced to apologise to Liverpool after “significant human errors” saw Luis Diaz’s first-half goal wrongly disallowed for offside. After that apology, Reds boss Jurgen Klopp called for his side to be given a replay as they went on to lose 2-1.
Those demands have no hope of coming true though, with the Premier League sticking by the win for Spurs. And Klopp’s comments have created fresh material for Maddison to mock Alexander-Arnold with.
The duo met up at St George’s Park on Monday for the international break. And Maddison wasted no time in making a dig at his international team-mate over the calls for a replay.
He posted a photo of himself sitting down looking up at Alexander-Arnold on his Instagram story, with the caption “Still asking for a replay”. Maddison will hope his impressive form, with has helped Spurs storm to the top of the league will see him handed game-time over the next week.
But his cheeky dig may not go down well with Klopp, who was adamant that his team had been robbed of at least a point. Speaking a few days after the PGMOL’s apology, the German called for a replay, though he was sympathetic towards the match officials.
“All the people involved – on-field ref, linesman, fourth official and especially now in this case VAR – they didn’t do that on purpose. We shouldn’t forget that. It was an obvious mistake and I think there would have been solutions for it afterwards,” Klopp said.
“If not, I can say immediately, and probably some people don’t want me to say it, not as the manager of Liverpool but much more as a football person, I think the only outcome should be a replay. That’s how it is.
“It probably will not happen. The argument against that will probably be if you open that gate then everybody will ask for it. I think the situation is that unprecedented that a replay would be the right thing.
“In this specific game, what makes it a bit more special is that we conceded two minutes after we scored a regular goal. How all things depend on each other, if the other goal would have counted we would have started in the centre of the pitch and not where it started.
“It would have been different. That’s my view on it. We have to just talk about it completely calm. All the emotions are out, the game is finished, what can be really the possible outcome? … If that happened in the future again, then I would say replay, or much better than a replay, sort it in the moment.”
