Sign up to Miguel Delaney’s Reading the Game newsletter sent straight to your inbox for free
Sign up to Miguel’s Delaney’s free weekly newsletter
Jurgen Klopp has taken a parting shot at TNT Sports by declaring that he will never watch the channel again in the future and told them to remove him from their list of subscribers.
The Liverpool manager joked that Amnesty International should get involved because he believes scheduling their games at 12.30pm on a Saturday is a crime and claimed his side have had the fastest turnaround of matches in the global game.
Klopp was long a critic of BT Sport – TNT’s predecessor – for regularly scheduling Liverpool in Saturday’s early kick-off slot and highlighted their recent run of fixtures, from a Thursday away game in Atalanta to a Sunday match at Fulham, a Wednesday night Merseyside derby and the first game on Saturday, when they drew 2-2 at West Ham to in effect end their title challenge.
Klopp believes the schedule is crazy and blamed the broadcasters – though he laughingly offered to be a pundit on TNT in the future as he said: “I watch a lot of football all over the world, the Premier League is the best league in the world. So it’s not overrated. The players are over-worked. Easy as that. You can talk about that until everybody realises finally, but somebody needs to help the people.
“I had a discussion only the other day with colleagues from our favourite TV channel which I will definitely not watch again, TNT, and said it’s always a conversation they have, saying they pay you, they give money to football. It’s not like that. I really don’t see it like that. It’s exactly the other way round, football pays them. They broadcast it, they deliver, but it’s not that TNT is not doing extremely well, or Sky or whoever, is doing extremely well.
“They can pay all of you, it’s all fine. You have to become a part of football again, and not just the squeezer. That’s it, that’s a little advice from an old man on the way out. I will watch a lot of football, but not all because people can survive without match days from time to time, definitely.”
There are no English semi-finalists in the Champions League or the Europa League which Klopp believes is due to the fixture list.
He added: “[Manchester] City and Arsenal, they are out in the quarter-finals, this is just not a reflection of quality. It’s just a reflection of we could not deliver on the day we had to. Yes, other countries have really good teams, no doubt about that, but it’s a sign. Years ago I think we had four English teams in quarter-finals. And then we take that and say, ‘Yeah, it’s the quality of the Premier League and let’s make more of it.’ But we have to change that approach, that’s how it is. You always think when I speak about it, it’s because of our last situation.
“We didn’t lose against West Ham. But because of the last game. No, it’s a general problem. Nothing to do with our schedule now. That they dare give Thursday, Sunday, Wednesday, Saturday 12.30 is a crime. I was actually waiting for Amnesty International to go to them. Somebody sits there – you love this press conference – so just somebody sits there and decides there. I would like to meet, I would like to once be part of that meeting where somebody says, ‘Liverpool 12.30’, and the whole room is bursting into laughter. ‘Again?!’ I would like to be there.
“This morning I got sent the stats of the biggest turnaround in the whole world. Liverpool FC, yeah (laughs). And we sit there, and I’m the same. I tell you, ‘You have to do more, you have to fight more, and you have to go for it.’ In a whole world, we have the quickest turnaround between games. That is absolutely insane. But they are still happy and they like subscribers. You can take me off that list! But if you’re looking for a pundit, I speak English! I could do it.”
Conor Bradley is back in training and in contention to face Tottenham on Sunday, but Virgil van Dijk is a doubt and Diogo Jota will not be available to return. Meanwhile, Klopp has dismissed his touchline bust-up with Mohamed Salah at West Ham as “a non-story”.
He added: “If we wouldn’t know each other for that long I don’t know how we would deal with it but we know each other for that long and respect each other.”
Salah will enter the last year of his contract in the summer and Liverpool expect the Egyptian to stay. While Klopp will not be involved in the decision, he said: “Mo as a player is incredible and I don’t think I should speak about that. Other people will decide that, especially Mo, I don’t have any signs it will not be like that. I just try to prepare the basis for the future.”