Mourinho won’t Klopp flak off me again as I’m older and wiser
Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp claims he’s calmer on the touchline now – a year after his antics wound up Jose Mourinho during his ill-fated second spell at Chelsea.
The volatile managers meet at Anfield tomorrow for the first time since Mourinho took over at Manchester United.
The last time they met Kop boss Klopp banged a nai l into Mourinho’s Stamford Bridge coffin by masterminding Liverpool’s 3-1 win at Chelsea last October.
Mourinho was furious at Klopp’s touchline tantrums that day with the German boss challenging the match officials several times during an intense match.
Asked after the game if he would have got away with behaving like his German rival, the Portuguese manager said: “You have doubts?
“When I challenged him the fourth official told me to shut up or I go out.”
Klopp claimed not to remember the incident – but even though he insists he’s a more tranquil figure in the technical area these days he’s not about to change.
He said: “I don’t recognise this and I am not sure anybody told me about it after the game and now nearly one year later we talk about it.
“I didn’t speak with Jose about it after the game.
“But I have to accept that for a long time in my life not everybody was 100 per cent happy with my performance on the sidelines.
“I think I’m not as intense as I used to be when I was younger.
“Sometimes it happens. But actually now at Anf ield there is much, much more space for all of us.
“From then to now I’m one year older. That’s what age in a positive way can do. We will see. For me, there were never incidents between Jose and myself when I played against him for Dortmund against Real Madrid or Chelsea. Everything has been good until now.”
With the stakes high for both sides Klopp’s final comment may have ominous undertones.
Louis van Gaal ’s United were humbled in the Europa League last 16 at Anfield last season as a hightempo first-half blitz effectively put Liverpool into the quarter-finals.
The home side will start as the favourites again after a flying start to the campaign.
But Klopp insists a physically bigger and stronger United still pose a major danger even if Mourinho is still trying to find the right formula.
He said: “I know at this moment everybody feels that we are in a good way and they are not in a good way, but there are only three points of a difference. That’s absolutely nothing.
“We don’t feel we are in a good way and they are not. We only think about their quality, and they have a lot of quality.
“If you have one second where you don’t concentrate, then you lose the game in that second. That’s how it is.
“But if they are not concentrating for a second, then we can use the situation. There’s not a big difference between the teams.
“Yes they have tall players so we have already started to stretch our players. When the ball is in the air then we will think about it.
“That’s only one of their qualities – but it is a quality.”
“They have physical strength but it’s only one strength of their team. It will be close.”