Liverpool's Jurgen Klopp is taunted by Tony Pulis

Jurgen Klopp and Tony Pulis during the heated face-off at Anfield

West Bromwich Albion boss, Tony Pulis, has hit out at Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp a week after their touchline feud on Sunday.

Pulis branded Klopp’s behaviour as “disappointing” and he went on to subtly taunt the German manager when he said,“...but he’s got his opinions and he can say what he wants. We apologise we actually played three longer passes in 99 minutes than Liverpool did in that game.”

It was a stromy duel between the two teams which culminated into a 2-2 draw. Albion displayed a very defensive brand of football and an aggressive one too. Craig Gardner, the Albion midfielder, in his desperate attempt to win the ball caught Dejan Lovern’s knee and as a result the Crotian will be out for a month now. This incident was followed by Klopp’s outrage on the touchline. After the match Klopp complained that West Brom “only played long balls.” He went on to say,

“We had some words in the game and sometimes it takes more than a few seconds to cool down. Usually I shake hands. It was not a friendly game.”

Pulis is looking forward to another serious challenge with West Brom set to face Swansea City in an away fixture on Sunday. He had his sharp reply,

“If I had a team that was worth £200m playing against a team that was worth less than £20m and we never won that game I’d be doing my best to divert it away from the fact that I had 10 times more value on the pitch than my opposition number had and couldn’t win the game.”

Klopp’s response

Klopp, however, has been professional enough in his reply to Pulis’ comments. In an apologetic yet diplomatic statement Klopp responded via the Echo saying, “I can easily say sorry for everything I said during game. Sometimes you do things in football you wouldn’t do in normal life but it wasn’t serious.”

“Everything different in those 98mins. It wasn’t big problem. After the game I wanted to go to my team. I have big respect for Pulis’ work. I wanted to go to the players and be with them. What can I say?”

Divock Origi’s 95th minute equalizer fetched a point for Liverpool who are presently ranked ninth in the league. The players were led by Klopp towards the Kop in celebration and their behaviour was not that of a team who drew but was that of a team who won. Klopp, however, refused to shake hands with Pulis.

Klopp’s response will hopefully put an end to the dispute between him and Pulis.