Klopp frustrated as Burnley’s battlers hold wasteful Reds
LIVERPOOL 1 Salah (30) BURNLEY 1 Arfield (27)
BURNLEY’S unlikely homespun team ratcheted up the levels of frustration Jurgen Klopp has been feeling in the past eight days.
Humiliation at Manchester City, a home Champions League draw, and now more points dropped in the Premier League at Anfield.
Klopp may have had £120m-rated Philippe Coutinho back but Sean Dyche had Nick Pope, James Tarkowski, Johan Berg Gudmundsson and Scott Arfield.
Keeper Pope was starting his first Premier League game for the club after a career that has included stints at Bury Town, Harrow Borough, Welling and Aldershot.
He made two magnificent saves in the last three minutes to make sure his team earned a point.
Tarkowski has played for Oldham and Brentford, Gudmundsson came from Charlton and goalscorer Arfield cut his teeth with Falkirk.
Yet they were the stars on the day Liverpool celebrated 125 years as a football club, not Coutinho, Daniel Sturridge and the rest.
Mo Salah levelled after Arfield had given Burnley a 27th-minute lead, but from then on it was a tale of Liverpool’s not-so-clinical attack against Burnley’s stout defence.
Klopp admitted his frustrations afterwards but stressed that he is not worried that Liverpool’s season is on the brink of stalling.
“I don’t feel any positivity in this moment but it will be easy to see the positive things tomorrow,” he said.
“It has been a frustrating week results-wise but it is my job to see the performance and I still think we can be really strong.
“We could have won pretty much all our games so far when you think about the performance.
“Why we feel so disappointed or frustrated is because we see what this team can do.
“We made seven changes today but still were playing fluent, dominant football. No one should take something like that for granted.”
Dyche has now extracted five points from away trips to Chelsea, Tottenham and Liverpool this season after his side lost 14 of the 19 games on their travels last season.
“The challenge we have as managers is we are all judged exactly the same, even though the playing field is not level,” he said.
“But I don’t want to make too much of a big deal because I believe in my players.
“You have to defend well at these places. Our game-plan wasn’t to come here and think we are going to keep the ball all afternoon.
“It is much harder for them to score from 30 yards than six, and I thought we did that today other than their goal, when we got caught on a long ball.
“We have changed a few things tactically from last season but the main thing is that the players are bit more assured and a bit more understanding of the Premier League.”
Klopp thought his side should have had a penalty when Salah went to ground under a challenge from Tarkowski in the 18th minute.
The Egyptian then headed over at the back post from a Sturridge cross
When Burnley went in front it was the familiar story of poor Liverpool defending.
Joel Matip and Ragnar Klavan couldn’t cope with Chris Wood’s presence as the three scrapped for a looping Robbie Brady header and Arfield side-footed the ball home.
It took just three minutes for Liverpool to level with a route-one goal – Salah collecting Emre Can’s 40-yard pass on the edge of the box, shrugging off Stephen Ward and beating Pope.
Sturridge rippled the side-netting with a blazing drive and Pope saved from both Salah and Sturridge at the end of the first half before the England striker chipped just over the bar at the start of the second.
Coutinho finished a couple of impressive runs that ended with offtarget shots, then Can’s fierce drive was spilled by Pope and had to be hacked away by Tarkowski.
Pope parried a stinger from Sturridge, Tarkowski blocked from James Milner and Coutinho and Can headed on to the roof of the net.
Ben Mee might have won it twice forBurnleyneartheend.Fromone Brady corner he got in a free header that Matip headed off the line, and from the next he saw his header blocked by Simon Mignolet.
Pope then made a brilliant save to keep out Salah’s deflected effort, and three minutes from time made a fingertip save from substitute Dominic Solanke’s volley.