Jurgen Klopp spotted apologising to Liverpool fans after Anfield incident in win v West Ham United
Jurgen Klopp was spotted apologising to the Liverpool fans at Anfield after attempting to gee them up during the 5-1 victory against West Ham on 20 December, according to the Daily Mail.
The newspaper shared in their print edition [21 December, page 67] that the Liverpool boss turned to the main stand in an attempt to get the crowd going, only to walk back into his technical area shaking his head with a hand raised in apology.
This comes following Klopp’s rant after the game in which he called on the fans at Anfield to give their tickets away if they are not willing to back the team.
The famous Anfield atmosphere
Everybody always goes on about how good the atmosphere is at Anfield. That is, in the very particular circumstances playing under the lights in a big European tie. Otherwise, it’s just another average Premier League crowd.
Klopp’s actions during the game, and subsequent rant afterwards, are a display of how even some of the most respected fans in the league have fallen flat, with fan culture in England once again taking a knock compared to that in Europe.
That being said, the London Stadium is another that falls into that category. As fervent as the atmosphere was at the Boleyn Ground, it has so far failed to translate to a stadium designed for athletics where the fans are simply too far and spread out from the pitch to get anything going.
Moyes even spoke about it himself, calling for the fans to create a “big atmosphere” to spur the team on to get better results after some lacklustre performances this season. [West Ham website]
It has become a problem in the Premier League as a whole that managers are having to instruct their fans to make noise when they are competing on the biggest stage – in this case, a cup quarter-final.
In other West Ham news, Barcelona want to find an agreement to sign one Hammers ace.