Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has gone on record to state that Manchester United seem to receive a lot more penalty calls in their favor, and now former referee Mark Clattenburg has responded to those claims.
Mind Games
Klopp made the claim in the aftermath of Liverpool’s premier league match against Southampton after his side’s penalty appeal was rejected when Sadio Mane appeared to be fouled by Kyle Walker-Peters.
After the game, a raging Klopp stated that “Man Utd had more penalties in two years than me in five and a half years.”
Mark Clattenburg has dismissed Klopp’s claims as mind games, suggesting that he was only trying to influence the referee billed to officiate the match between Liverpool and Manchester United this Sunday. Writing in his column for the Daily Mail, Clattenburg analyzed the eleven penalties awarded to Manchester United this season and concluded that at least five of them were indeed dubious.
However, Clattenburg rectified that Liverpool are not exactly strangers to the practice of trying to con referees.
Just as Guilty
Continuing, he said, “He sounds like a hypocrite if he is suggesting united’s players are looking to win penalties. The likes of Mo Salah and Mane are just as capable of employing similar tactics.”
Clattenburg reasoned that Klopp’s comments indicate that he’s beginning to get flustered by Manchester United’s sustained title challenge. “He is clearly getting edgy, though, because not since Fergie (Sir Alex Ferguson) have we seen such a blatant attempt to influence a referee ahead of a big game,” he said. “Klopp wasn’t doing this last season when Liverpool were winning every week.”
He, however, ended by suggesting that Manchester United under Sir Alex Ferguson had a certain “aura” about them that made refereeing decisions go their way, but that aura faded when the brilliant Scottish manager left the club.
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