I think if you look at the incident in slow motion, Felipe’s boot connects with Mane’s achilles, with a bit of force also. Mane could’ve sustained a season ending injury. In my view it was cynical and the referee saw exactly what Felipe intended. Yes, it’s unusual to see a player sent off for this type of foul, but only because most referees aren’t strong enough, especially against teams like Atletico, who take intimidation to a different level.
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No argument, I’m just surprised it was given more than anything.
Not sure. The UEFA delegate said it was for the foul but that was what I was expecting at the time to be honest. The red was a surprise to me.
There are a couple of things about teams like Athletico.
Referees are often intimidated by their style, so many fouls that the refs almost become tolerant of their play and only punish the ‘worst’ fouls.
The ref last night was 100% correct with the red card, it was a thuggish tackle. Koke should have gone earlier and maybe this was the last straw.
The most annoying thing for me last night was that when the game was comfortable, maybe if we went 3 -0, that a couple of our players didnt plough into them.
Few bad tackles, take a red card and a suspension for two dead rubber matches. Show them we are not to be messed with.
I loved the way Konate etc reacted to Ronaldos assault on Jones, get into their faces and become the intimidators. The fact there was that Ronalso should have got red, so that changes the game.
There is always going to be the “conspiracy” arguments etc, and I believe bias exists…
But…
Maybe by the players becoming a bit cuntish and more difficult to listen to we wouldnt be on here talking about our players being injured by cuntish teams?
Games like that I yearn for Case or Souness.
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Felipe fouls mane
Ref: too much shithousery against liverpool. Time for a yellow. Come here
Felipe runs away.
“Come here”
felipe doesn’t hear
"COME HERE. Are you trying to shithouse ME too? Take this red and fuck off "
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I disagree. Why sink to their level? They may or may not progress, we definitely will. In the past we were intimidated by thugishness, particularly by the likes of MC, RM, AM and Burnley but of late we seem to have developed a bit of a thicker skin. I like the fact we don’t descend to cynical fouls like stamping (which is still rife) and that we just get on with it and (mostly) leave with the points… Also, I’m not sure whether overt aggression can be switched on and off, once it starts to come into your your game - well that is the path you go down. Teams like RM, Burnley and AM practice, practice, practice that way of playing - as a unit. It is not that a random player naturally has that bent and manager goes, “go on lad, get stuck in”.
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That might have been his intention but what he ended up doing was dangerous. He made contact with Mane’s achilles with his studs. Coupled with his subsequent antics he can have no complaints about getting sent off.
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We don’t need to sink to their level. We do need to show them we are no soft touches and won’t be intimidated or knocked out of our stride. (Fab and Tsimi did just that last night.)
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na, stay classy and control the game which is pretty much what we did. I would have liked more goals just to put them back in their box but in all honesty I’m getting more concerned with injuries to be honest. Ox and Firmino last night.
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Wasn’t able to watch the game live but just seen the highlights. Not sure I get the controversy about the red card. He has no intention of playing the ball, just takes a big swing and hacks at the leg. We’re all lucky that the leg wasn’t planted.
If he drags him down by his shirt or something like that then yes it would be a yellow card but the foul was significantly more dangerous and reckless by intentionally swinging a boot at another player’s leg.
Great refereeing to decide not to stand for that shit. On another day he broke an ankle with that tackle.
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Why aren’t you watching every. single. game. then?! 
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I understand what you are saying and I’d also like us to physically dominate and intimidate the opposition when required. But thats an anathema to Klopp and is just not part of how he wants his teams up to play. If we want all the joy and love that comes with Klopp then we have to accept that we are just not going to be top level shithouses. Viewed like that, you’ve got to be happy with how we play.
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“eehhhh… I have to take care of improving the team… I have to take care of making them more regular…”
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I think it depends on which view you get. The initial angles I saw (combined with the speed in real-time) made it look fairly innocuous compared to what it actually was. I’m guessing the referee got a good view and had already made up his mind to give the red. What might have confused some people who thought he was going to give a yellow originally is that every single time he pulls the cards out, the first view you get is of the card that’s not going to be shown. It confused me for the initial couple of yellow cards because I was thinking, surely that can’t be red?
For the insisting that Felipe walk over to him though, I don’t think the lack of respect shown by Felipe there influenced the sending off. I think the referee was quite clear that the players had to walk over to him, rather than him walking to them, reminding them that he was the authority on the pitch.
Well-deserved red once you look at what Felipe actually did, and he really can’t complain.
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The most pleasing aspect for me was the performance to the red card, we played very well. We got our goals, we then didn’t implode, we controlled the game and they resorted to even more shithousery and it backfired massively.
Atletico are a strange team, when they want to play football they can, really don’t see why they need for such appalling tactics and no I’d never want our team to sink to those levels and it was great Mane didn’t lose his head as they did target him again.
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It matches Simione’s style of play when he played football. It’s just his way to go about football. He loves the rough and tumble of it all, and by and large he’s been a success at Athletico. He obviously doesn’t give a shit about what anyone thinks of the way he sets his teams up, with all their shitehousery and stretching of the rules. Fair play to him, if that’s what he wants.
In a few years, once Trippier hangs his boots up, hopefully he will spill a few beans about it, and how he feels about playing in that way.
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I get it, I get why he’s done it and how he used it to break the monopoly in Spain. It just seems to have gone to another level and into the realms of unacceptable. As I say it’s not as though they are poor footballers who are thugs, they can play football quite a bit. Back fired massively for them last night, the irony was when they passed it around quickly they caused us problems, then the red card and boom see you later.
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Souness was a sublime player in a sublime team. But he could and would be a hard bastard when required. So was Roy Keane, so was Jimmy Case etc etc.
Its not sinking to any level to put authority on the opposition and show them we won’t be kicked off the park.
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I am happy with how we play, even with the odd blip…I just hate us being “Arsenal” like and moaning about thugs
All of this wouldn’t even matter if refs knew how to not get influenced by the teams and players that actually play dirty. But hey, we don’t want to ruin a ‘spectacle’ 
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For me it is a bit of a snobbish stand point. I’d rather not sink to that level. Winning isn’t guaranteed and in adding a bit of “steel”, where do you draw the line? You have one hard nut, do you need a replacement in case of injuries and the occasional red/yellow accumulation ban? Do you start to buy “bigger” players as a strategy to counter other teams? Do you start to coach youth players in that way? I think it is easier said than done. I think the likes of Henderson, Fabinho and Milner are sufficient. The 70s and 80s were a different time. The game was slower and just much more physical. At the speed the players play nowadays, I wonder if Souness, Keane and MacMachon would be able to play as they did back then.
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