Burnley boss Sean Dyche - Jurgen Klopp's comments about Ashley Barnes and Chris Wood were "inappropriate"

Sean Dyche felt Jurgen Klopp's criticism of Ashley Barnes and Chris Wood after Saturday's 2-0 defeat at Liverpool was "inappropriate."
Jurgen KloppJurgen Klopp
Jurgen Klopp

The Reds boss feels the new 'lighter touch' applied to refereeing is taking the game back "10-15 years", saying: "You saw these challenges of Barnes and Wood on Virgil (van Dijk) and Joel (Matip).

“I am not 100% sure if we are going in the right direction with these decisions, if we go 10-15 years back.

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“It is too dangerous – it is just hard. The rules are how they are but you cannot defend these situations.”

And he added: “Watch wrestling if you like these kind of things.”

Dyche has no issue with Klopp airing his view on the game, but suggesting Barnes and Wood were guilty of "dangerous" challenges, in a game without a booking, on a day when the Clarets broke the Premier League record for games without a red card, was not right.

He said: "Every manager has the right to have their say, he's certainly had his - across football it seems to me the feedback has probably been considerably opposite to that.

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"The facts are we had a referee there of some 8,900 games (Mike Dean), who didn't book anyone, didn't get a card out, so it is quite bizarre when you look at it like that, just factually, how he could suggest there were some untoward challenges.

"My main disappointment is not his view of the game, everyone has a view of the game, but he's name-checking players - absolutely no need to do that.

"We've got professional players who've worked very hard in their careers to get where they've got to, and the implication of them being untoward in some of their challenges I think is wrong, it's inappropriate - it's not something that I do myself, I very rarely, if ever, mention individuals, I might imply something, but I don't name them.

"I certainly don't go on about other teams' styles."

And he added: "Overall, I think most people around football, most voices, have all suggested there was nothing in the game of mention.

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"I think players get protected to a level which is unbelievable in my history of the game, and rightly so in some cases.

"I would be more worried he's questioning why a team shouldn't do everything they can to win a game, within the laws, which we clearly do, because there wasn't a single card.

"If fans want a game where there aren't people giving their lot, some kind of physicality to win a game, I'd be surprised.

"I know the history of Liverpool, I was a Liverpool fan as a kid, still am, but more distant as I've got older, and you don't have to go far in the annals of Liverpool's history to suggest they had a few players who would make sure they were fighting to win a game, and they still have a few.

"I'm not questioning Jurgen Klopp, he's a fantastic manager who's done amazing things at Liverpool, I'm just here to make sure I look at my side and my view of the game."