‘I don’t understand’ -Jurgen Klopp’s blunt answer to Alexis Sanchez red card vs Liverpool

Jurgen Klopp was adamant Inter Milan’s Alexis Sanchez deserved to be sent off as Liverpool sealed their place in the Champions League quarter-finals.

The Reds took a two-goal lead into Tuesday night’s last-16 second-leg encounter at Anfield - having won 2-0 at the San Siro last month.

But Liverpool were below their best and Inter gave themselves a huge lifeline when Lautaro Martínez scored in the 62nd minute.

Yet just a minute later, Sanchez was issued a second yellow card for a foul on Fabinho.

The former Manchester United forward was booked in the first half for a reckless challenge on Thiago Alcantara.

Sanchez’s dismissal effectively surrendered the Serie A side’s chances of completing a comeback.

Klopp felt the Chile international was lucky not to have been given a straight red card before the interval.

What’s been said

The Liverpool boss said: “I don’t understand why we have to discuss that?

“In football, if you play football, you can win the ball only - if you bring yourself in a position where you can danger the opponent - then you don’t win the ball. That’s it.

“If Fab goes in with the same intention with a long leg then both players get injured.

“But Fab is there because he judged the ball. If he is not flying in then I will get it.

“But because he is flying in, it’s possible he touched the ball but cannot stop and hit Fab in a really bad way, to be honest.

“I think he was quite lucky he didn’t get a different colour in the first half for a foul on Thiago with the leg that high against the knee, a similar situation.

“Passion is good, absolutely good, but if it leads to these things, it doesn’t help.”

‘We could’ve done better’

Liverpool hit the woodwork three times against Inter but could not match the heights they’ve hit so frequently this season.

The Reds’ defeat was their first at Anfield for a year.

However, Klopp knew his troops were in for a tough challenge against the Italian champions and was happy to get through to the next stage.

“The difficulties we had were pretty close to what I expected. Inter are a really, really good side, set up for these kind of games,” added the German.

“Without playing brilliantly we had clear-cut chances. Over the two legs it’s completely fine that they won one and we went through. We could’ve done better against an opponent that makes life uncomfortable.

"It was a really interesting game. In the end we lost the game which obviously is not cool, we didn't come here to lose a home game.

"The opponent caused us problems but if we had used our chances we win this game. We lost a lot of simple balls, which can happen and when the ball was in the air it was like slapstick with the wind.

“The counter-press was not really there. We were around challenges but not in challenges and we didn't get the momentum, that's what we were lacking."