Liverpool manager, Jurgen Klopp says he did not speak to Mohamed Salah following his dive against Crystal Palace as Red’s star striker knew he had done wrong.
The Egypt international has found himself dealing with accusations that he goes to ground too easily following a spate of penalties he has won since Christmas and his critics seized on the way he tumbled over following pressure from Mamadou Sakho in Liverpool’s 4-3 win. Referee Jon Moss did not award a foul, nor did he caution Salah for simulation but that did not stop the incident from being magnified.
Klopp criticised Salah last May when he went down too easily in a 1-0 defeat at Chelsea saying: ‘That is not what I want to see.’ When asked about the incident on Tuesday, Klopp made it clear that he did not feel the need to talk it over with Salah and did not try to defend him.
‘If this is the first situation where he went down without (penalty), you speak about all the other situations as well. The other situations (Newcastle, Arsenal, Brighton) there is nothing to talk about — it is a penalty, done. If (Palace) is the first then why we talk then? Did anyone talk to Jamie Vardy when I forget the opponent (Southampton), everybody saw,’ said Klopp, whose side host Leicester on Wednesday night.
‘Is Jamie a bad person because of that? I don’t say now he is a diver. That is another situation. You have (defenders) in the back, you are there, you feel something, do you have to go down? Probably not. I don’t have to speak to players about obvious things. He (Salah) knows that. Don’t go down in situations like that. There are other situations that are much more obvious that we don’t talk about and nobody is talking about because it’s not City, it’s not United, it’s not Liverpool, it’s not Arsenal or it’s not Chelsea. All the others can do it from time to time and nobody really talks about it. That’s all fine.’
Klopp, who expects to have Virgil van Dijk fit after a short illness, added: ‘We don’t need blood for a foul in football. That’s all I will say about it. But no, I didn’t speak to him about it.’
