Jurgen Klopp Doesn’t Understand Why Liverpool Couldn’t Beat Sunderland

Jurgen Klopp said he had no answers as Liverpool twice surrendered a lead at Sunderland to lose pace in the Premier League title race. A Jermain Defoe penalty in either half cancelled out strikes from Daniel Sturridge and Sadio Mane as the Merseysiders missed the chance to close the gap on leaders Chelsea to three points.

Klopp's men trail the Blues by five points having played a game more, but Klopp refused to concede the dropped points would severely affect Liverpool's title hopes. He said “No, they are not crucial points dropped, think about it, the others have to play and there are a lot of games to go. It's not nice for us. I have no answers today, not because of the result but because I knew before I wouldn't know what to say. Two games in two days is very difficult and we did well given that, but I'm not sure. It was a very difficult 90 minutes, I have no real idea because I know we can play better football but I'm not sure we could have today because we played two days ago. But you all want to see these games, even when you don't show them to people in your own country. So I'm not sure, I'm a little bit in between.”

Klopp took offence with referee Anthony Taylor's decision to award Sunderland their second penalty at the Stadium of Light, following Mane's handball after Sebastian Larsson's free-kick. The Liverpool boss felt there was no foul on Defoe in the build-up which handed Sunderland the free-kick.