Everyone was poking fun at Jurgen Klopp on Wednesday night, and Jose Mourinho couldn’t help but get in on the act.
The German gaffer was the subject of a lot of ridicule for his excuse after Shane Long sent Liverpool crashing out of the EFL cup at the semi-final stage.
Despite dominated possession against Southampton for 180 minutes, the Reds just couldn’t find the net over two legs. They found out the hard way that not scoring while that pacy Irish striker is on the pitch can lead to your downfall.
Indeed it was Long who was being praised by pundit Jamie Carragher after the full-time whistle, not Klopp.
The world could do with a few more Shane Longs https://t.co/d4SJoGubvk
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) January 26, 2017
When you bow out of a tournament when you were expected to, and arguably deserved to go further, the classy way to react is to show nothing but respect to your opponents.
Some might see Klopp’s reaction, of blaming the weather as somewhat disrespectful towards the Saints, particularly because they also had to contend with the conditions.
“I’m disappointed, there’s big disappointment. It was difficult. The wind was really strange, it was difficult to handle.
“You saw one or two balls when the ball stopped in a moment when nobody knew about it. That was difficult for a football-playing side.
“I said a few times when I came here about the wind and everybody was laughing, but today was really difficult, really difficult to play football with this wind.”
"That was difficult for a football-playing side" https://t.co/gYls74riGp
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) January 26, 2017
Southampton will face Manchester United in the final after the Red Devils crawled past Hull City over two legs.
It wasn’t pretty, and it certainly wasn’t very satisfying for Red Devils fans, but their 2-1 defeat to the Tigers in the return leg was enough to earn them a trip to Wembley.
While Michael Carrick utilised his post-match media obligations to voice his dejection of his side’s performance on Thursday night, Jose Mourinho took another approach.
After the game, he couldn’t help but score a sly dig on Klopp.
‘Wembley will be windy, so we may struggle,’ he said.
Simple, but effective burn. That one’s got to sting.
