Liverpool head coach Jurgen Klopp is surprised that Mohamed Salah is not being awarded more free kicks in the English Premier League games.
The Egyptian star was harshly fouled by referee Paul Tierney in Tottenham Hotspur’s game despite having his shirt pulled by Ben Davies, which led to Klopp’s angry celebration in front of fourth referee John Brooks after Diogo Joto’s late winner.
Despite playing nearly 2855 minutes of English Premier League football this season, Salah has been awarded just 31 free kicks with 55 players have been fouled more.
“I know these stats as well and I have to say they are really surprising. He has the ball constantly at his feet. Mo is a dribbler and has scored an insane number of goals over the years and it is like this,” Klopp said.
The German man recalled an incident that took place last October when Manchester City’s Bernardo Silva avoided punishment following a foul against the Egyptian forward which led to Klopp receiving a red card and one-match touchline ban for protesting in the face of assistant Gary Beswick.
“How Mo deals with these things, I don’t know. It’s absolutely exceptional. For me in that moment (against Spurs), it was a foul again on Mo, it was just so obvious. Like Bernardo Silva’s was a clear foul on Mo. I don’t understand it,”
“If nothing happens after that then it is done and dusted, but we conceded a goal 35 seconds after this incident (when Richarlisonequalised). I just didn’t want to find an excuse for my reaction, just to explain it.
”It was like: there’s a foul, there’s a free-kick, there’s a goal. And pretty much directly after, we scored, so that was pretty much the emotion I was in.
