Despite the outrage on the touchline surrounding referee paul tierney’s final whistle, liverpool boss jurgen klopp said he saw nothing wrong with darwin nunez’s controversial stoppage-time winner at nottingham forest.
Nunez scored in the ninth minute of time to seal a 1-0 victory at the city ground, lifting liverpool four points clear at the top of the premier league and leaving forest just four points behind the drop zone. Forest players, staff, and supporters were outraged after referee tierney stopped play before liverpool’s winner for an apparent head injury to ibrahima konate. Forest was blown by tierney on the edge of the liverpool penalty area.
However, after konate had recovered quickly, the match official inexplicably dropped the ball to visiting goalkeeper caoimhin kelleher, who then started the process that led to the dramatic winner.
Klopp was however insistent that the referee was only being fair. “in the first half, it was exactly the same,” he said.
It’s exactly the same, just the other way round. “i thought it would happen like that because it happened in the first half,” he said. I would have asked the question if it hadn’t happened in the first half.
“i would assume that’s the case,” i don’t know. I don’t really see their motives for a discussion because it happened twice and was handled the same way.
“earlier in the game, tierney stopped a liverpool attack after forest skipper ryan yates was struck by harvey elliott’s shot, and home goalkeeper matz sels took over.
“i understand 100% the excitement and angst of nottingham, of course,” klopp said. They fought for it all. It happened twice the same and was consistent.”
