Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has broken his silence on Real Madrid captain Sergio Ramos following the incident which saw Mohamed Salah suffer a dislocated shoulder during the Champions League final.
Salah left the pitch in Kiev in tears after a challenge with Ramos that saw his arm become trapped underneath the Spain centre-back's body.
Ramos was heavily criticised for the calculated nature of the challenge on Liverpool's top goalscorer. He defiantly chose to laugh off the claims he had deliberately set out to injure the Egyptian forward or elbow Loris Karius in a later incident that many cited as the reason behind the goalkeeper's concussion and subsequent errors in the second half of the match.
Klopp, though, did not hold back in his thoughts on Ramos' role in his side's 3-1 defeat to Madrid in May, calling the challenge "ruthless and brutal" before likening it to a move seen more often in wrestling matches.
He also vented his frustrations at Ramos' reaction to the incidents, with Klopp keen to stress that this is far from the first time the Spain skipper has been at the centre of a disciplinary storm.
"If you watch it back and you are not with Real Madrid then you think it is ruthless and brutal," Klopp told reporters.
"I saw the ref taking charge of big games at the World Cup and nobody really thinks about that later. But in a situation like that somebody needs to judge it better.
"If VAR is coming then it is a situation where you have to look again. Not to give a red card but to look again and say: ‘What is that?’ It was ruthless.
“I’m not sure it is an experience we will have again – go there and put an elbow to the goalkeeper, put their goalscorer down like a wrestler in midfield and then you win the game. That was the story of the game.
"Ramos said a lot of things afterwards that I didn’t like. As a person I didn’t like the reactions of him. He was like: ‘Whatever, what do they want? It’s normal.’ No, it is not normal
"If you put all of the situations of Ramos together then you will see a lot of situations with Ramos. The year before against Juve he was responsible for the red card for [Juan] Cuadrado. Nobody talks about that afterwards.
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"It is like we, the world out there, accepts that you use each weapon to win the game. People probably expect that I am the same. I am not.
"We are aggressive but I always use the word ‘legal' as well. Usually if you try something you will get punished. Someone will see it and ban you for four or five weeks. But in this example, no one.
"This ref should have had the courage to decide that game. In this situation we didn’t get it and, if you write this, people will say I am weak or a bad loser or a whiner. I am not. I accept it. It’s not like I wake up in the morning and think: ‘Ramos!’"
Liverpool are next in action when they face Manchester United in the International Champions Cup in Michigan on Saturday.
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