Jurgen Klopp was in good spirits considering Liverpool’s gut-wrenching FA Cup defeat to Manchester United on Sunday, with the Reds boss jokingly asking in his post-match press conference whether a dummy United contract left lying around in the media room was ‘for him’ ahead of his Anfield exit at the end of the season.
The climax of Liverpool’s blockbuster FA Cup quarter-final meeting with bitter rivals United certainly didn’t give Klopp much to smile about. Amad Diallo scored a 121st-minute winner for Erik ten Hag’s side in a 4-3 victory after extra-time, sparking bedlam at Old Trafford.
Klopp’s hopes of clinching the FA Cup for a second time in his final season at the helm were crushed in an instant, with the 56-year-old preparing for time away from the game after almost a decade on Merseyside.
He still found time for a joke, perhaps through gritted teeth, as he walked into his press conference. Stumbling upon a dummy United contract that had been left lying on a table, Klopp asked: “For me?”
The former Borussia Dortmund boss wasn’t so friendly with every reporter, bizarrely telling one that he is ‘not in great shape’, but he admitted in the immediate aftermath of the game that United deserved their spot in the semi-finals. “Our decision making was not great,” Klopp told the BBC. “But you have to accept the result.
“They deserve to go to the next round. It was a period in the second half when we should have finished it but we didn’t and we knew they could come back.
Antony forced extra-time after coming off the bench to score, and Liverpool looked to have won it again when Harvey Elliott found the bottom corner from distance.
Marcus Rashford had other ideas, however, slotting past Caoimhin Kelleher before Amad Diallo fired in at the far post to create a career highlight so dazzling that the youngster receiving a second yellow card for his celebration was virtually lost in the chaos.
