Jürgen Klopp admitted his Liverpool side deserved to lose against Arsenal after seeing their title hopes dented in North London. The German though was less than impressed with Ibrahima Konaté’s late sending-off.
The Reds suffered just their second Premier League defeat of the season as they fell to a 3-1 loss in calamitous circumstances at the Emirates Stadium. Bukayo Saka had given the hosts the lead, only for Liverpool to draw level before the break thanks to Gabriel’s own goal.
The visitor, though, would fall behind again in an even more bizarre fashion when a mix-up between Virgil van Dijk and Alisson Becker left Gabriel Martinelli with an open goal. Leandro Trossard would go on to confirm Arsenal’s victory in stoppage time after Konaté was given his marching orders.
“In general we can admit that Arsenal deserve the three points,” Klopp said, live on Sky Sports post-match. “The circumstances were a bit strange. The goal for us was similar to the cup game. In the cup game we had even bigger chances.
“We scored the goal at half-time and having nil shots on target, but a goal is a bit stranger. We had to adapt in a lot of moments today.
“We found our way into the game, we had crosses and situations where it was close and then the second half. But if you cannot keep it open, then Arsenal might become a little nervous. The red card did not help and we had to change what we tried a lot.”
Klopp added: “Because of the way we conceded the second goal and if we stayed in the game with the changes we could have changed the game into our direction. We gave them all the momentum.
“We didn’t miss players more than before as we always miss them. We had possession and just didn’t have the finishes, we found Trent on the wing and the ball flew in and Arsenal were under pressure. But I thought in the first half we went step-by-step to get in the game.”
On Konaté’s sending-off, Klopp said: “A lot of things were against us today. This referee gave me a red card against Man City for wrestling situation between Bernardo Silva and Mo Salah. Today same situation with Jota but [Gabriel] didn’t get a red card.
“It is unbelievable, then the holding of Havertz on Konaté for the first yellow card. Then Havertz goes down and the referee gives Konaté a yellow card. Gabriel does the same to Núñez and no yellow card.”
