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Klopp gives his opinion on offside rule following ‘awful’ Patricio injury

Jurgen Klopp has given his opinion on the offside rule following the ‘awful’ injury sustained by Rui Patricio in Liverpool’s 1-0 win at Wolves on Monday.

Liverpool returned to winning ways with a hard-fought win at Molineux, with Diogo Jota scoring the only goal of the game on his return to face his former side to boost the champions’ hopes of securing a top-four finish.

 

The visitors’ victory was marred, however, by a concerning head injury to Wolves goalkeeper Patricio, who was stretchered from the field following a collision with teammate Conor Coady.

The incident occurred as Coady attempted to prevent Mohamed Salah from scoring, only to later see the flag raised by the assistant with the Egyptian deemed offside.

The introduction of VAR has seen assistant referees encouraged to delay raising their flag when an immediate goalscoring opportunity could occur, allowing the action to unfold before signalling for an offside which can be later checked by the video technology.

It has, however, caused controversy and opened up the possibility of avoidable injuries before the action is called back, even in the case of clear and obvious offsides.

Klopp has now voiced his opinion on the ruling and believes the offside law ‘needs to be looked at’, though admitted that any potential change would not have prevented the ‘unlucky and awful’ injury to Patricio.

“I think the whole [offside law] needs to be looked at,” he said at his post-match press conference. “But I don’t think this situation, from what I saw and I didn’t see it back, it was not like miles offside or the clearest offside in the world.

“So I really think for that [injury], we cannot change this situation as unlucky and awful as it was, yes.

“But there are obviously situations in the game when everyone sees that it is offside.

“But they are the rules, we have spoken about a lot of things and they need to be looked at, for sure, if someone changes it? I don’t know.”

Wolves manager Nuno Espirito Santo provided a positive update on the goalkeeper following the defeat, revealing that Patricio was ‘totally conscious’ and had full memory of an incident that sparked huge concerns at Molineux.

“He’s conscious, totally conscious,” he told Sky Sports. “He remembers what happened, he is aware, so the doctor tells me he’s okay.”

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