Defiant Ramos is pulling no punches

SERGIO RAMOS has ridiculed the reaction to his clashes with Loris Karius and Mo Salah during Real Madrid’s Champions League victory over Liverpool. The defender made light of the incident with Karius despite Sportsmail revealing yesterday that the Liverpool goalkeeper suffered concussion after a clash with Ramos before making two huge errors to gift Real a 3-1 triumph in Kiev last month. Ramos also suggested that Salah, who went off in the 30th minute with a shoulder injury after being pulled to the ground by the Spaniard before half-time, could have taken a pain-killing injection and played the second half. Speaking in Madrid as Spain made their final World Cup preparations before flying to Russia tomorrow, Ramos said: ‘Bloody hell, they’ve given the Salah thing a lot of coverage. I didn’t want to talk about it because everything then gets magnified. ‘Looking at the incident, he grabs my arm first and I fell to the other side. The injury is to his other arm. And they said that I put him in a judo hold.’ Moving on to the Karius clash, he added: ‘The goalkeeper says that he was dazed because of a clash with me. All that’s missing is that they say Firmino caught a cold from one of my drops of sweat.’ Karius appeared to be elbowed in the head by Ramos, who had collided with Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk as they challenged for a Madrid corner. Karius did not receive any treatment and seconds later threw the ball into Karim Benzema’s path for Real’s opener. Karius then allowed Gareth Bale’s shot from 30 yards to slip through his hands for Real’s third goal. On the Salah incident, Ramos added: ‘I exchanged messages with Salah after the match and it was fine. He could have played on if he had taken a painkilling injection for the second half.’