KLOPP SO THE FANS WRONG TO BELIEVE CAN JUST MOVE ON
IT’S NOT often Jurgen Klopp gets it wrong – on or off the pitch. Klopp won the hearts and minds of Liverpool fans everywhere from the moment he stepped into Anfield in 2015 with an understanding and empathy that made him an honorary scouser from the get-go.
The football rhapsody and big titles that followed merely cemented that bond.
But Klopp scored a damaging own goal moments before his side went into battle against Newcastle yesterday with his assertion that we should all “calm down” over the European Super League debacle.
That’s easier said than done, Jurgen.
Just ask the few hundred fans who vented their anger as Liverpool’s team bus swung into Anfield before this clash with Steve Bruce’s Geordies.
Klopp struggles to hide his emotions and that’s no bad thing. This time, though, he’s got it wrong.
It’s right that football should move on. But the ESL fiasco shouldn’t be forgotten.
Not when greedy billionaire owners try to sell football down the river.
And neither should the fury and disappointment of Liverpool fans who will still be turning up to watch their team when owner John W Henry, his Fenway Sports Group and Klopp are long gone.
Events like this can’t be just brushed aside – even in a fast-moving season like this.
English football averted a catastrophic threat to its existence.
And the full explanation as to how and why the plot was hatched in such secrecy needs full disclosure – not a turn of the page as if its significance is yesterday’s news.
There have been plenty of moments in the past year when Liverpool fans would have given anything to be inside Anfield.
The coronation last July for winning their first league crown in 30 years was a lost moment for every Anfield fan who had suffered the misery forced on them by the Manchester dominance of first United and then City.
But yesterday’s game – against a pumped-up Newcastle who grabbed the latest of equalisers through Arsenal loanee Joe
Willock to make a bad week worse for Liverpool – must have come a close second for the Kop diehards who love their club to distraction.
For they were robbed of a moment of equal if not bigger significance than their title win – the fight for the soul and integrity of their club.
How they’d have enjoyed sticking it to Henry and his billionaire cohorts in a live TV game broadcast around the globe.
Plenty of owners have been vocal at how the absence of crowds during Covid has damaged football – and cost them millions.
But maybe this was one weekend when Henry might have felt an empty Anfield was a blessing in disguise.
Imagine the Kop making their point at full volume for 90 minutes?
No doubt Henry was tuning in to watch this clash from his luxury Boston home.
And he must have choked on his breakfast eggs as Newcastle gave Liverpool’s Champions League hopes a kick where it hurts.
Liverpool’s dream was to turn their back on UEFA’S blue-ribbon tournament with the ESL.
Ironic then, that you could see the disappointment of two dropped points etched on Klopp’s face as Liverpool’s top-four hopes were dealt a blow.
Yet a point was nothing less than Bruce’s men deserved for a gutsy display after falling behind to Mo Salah’s superb third-minute goal.
Liverpool had more shots than when they beat Crystal Palace 7-0 but thanks to the heroics of
Martin Dubravka, Newcastle stayed in the game – and delivered a classic sting in the tail.
After substitute Callum
Wilson’s 92nd-minute goal was ludicrously ruled out by VAR for handball, Newcastle looked done.
But back they came for one last attack – andwillock made Liverpool pay for missed chances with a goal that took a hefty deflection off Fabinho to send Bruce and his bench wild with delight.
Not a win, a victory of sorts for the Geordies.