Whenever Liverpool and Everton get together it’s always physical and emotional; all rivalries are. That’s why it’s a derby, and the second edition of the Merseyside derby (won by Liverpool 3-1) this year was just as heated as you would expect.
There were plenty of tough, physical challenges, including one by Everton’s Ross Barkley on Liverpool’s Dejan Lovren, which earned him a yellow card.
He could have easily seen red though. Everton Manager Ronald Koeman addressed this tackle as well as the reaction he saw from Liverpool Manager Jurgen Klopp on the opposite touch line.
“It’s part of football,” Koeman said of Barkley’s tackle, speaking to Sky Sports.
“I saw also some tackles from [Liverpool midfielder] Lucas — and that’s all about football — but we don’t make a show like the bench of Liverpool about faults that happened on the pitch.”
“We are different, we are more into the game and not about what happened with the referee and linesman and tackles. It’s football, it was a hard but a fair game.”
“I don’t like coaches from the bench the whole time shouting to referees, to [the] linesmen making a big show about tackles. They were crazy and they didn’t need an official on the pitch.”
Wow! Shade thrown at Jurgen Klopp by Ronald Koeman.
When told about Koeman’s comments, and asked for his response, Klopp simply said:
“Ronald Koeman spoke about me? Say about it what you want.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times and NBC Chicago.com, contributes to Chicago Tribune.com, Bold, WGN CLTV and KOZN.
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