Gabby Agbonlahor has fired back at Jurgen Klopp after the Liverpool manager got personal in criticism of his punditry during Friday’s press conference.
The unlikely war of words between the former Aston Villa striker and Liverpool boss has its roots in the comments Agbonlahor made following Manchester United ’s 4-0 thrashing by Brentford last weekend. Speaking on talkSPORT, he branded United's players "amateur" and their performance against the Bees "a shambles" before declaring they look "like strangers on the pitch".
With Liverpool preparing to head to Old Trafford on Monday for a Premier League game, Klopp took the unusual route of defending his opponents in a pre-match press conference. Having caught Agbonlahor’s scathing analysis on the radio, he felt compelled to push back against it.
"It was not a nice week for United after Brentford. We forget how good Brentford are," Klopp told reporters on Friday. “I watched the first half and drove home, listened to talkSPORT and Gabby…[Agbonlahor] he lost against us 6-0 in my first year, I couldn’t remember him as a mentality monster on the pitch.
“What he said about United on that show, I was close to calling in. I was close to calling in and telling him, you forgot completely what it’s like to be a player. It was unbelievable! When ex-players go like this then you can imagine how everything else is going.”
Klopp was referring to Aston Villa’s thrashing by his Liverpool side at Villa Park in February 2016. Agbonlahor spent the match isolated up front before being substituted by Remi Garde in the 58th minute – when the score had just turned 3-0.
In response, Agbonlahor pointed out a better performance of his against Liverpool by posting a picture on Instagram of him celebrating after scoring a ninth-minute goal in a 1-0 win at Anfield in September 2014. As a caption, he wrote: “Flashback Friday – mentality to score the winner at Anfield…”
That win over Brendan Rodgers' Liverpool moved Paul Lambert's Villa up to second in the Premier League. It came against a rotated Reds team, which still contained current player Jordan Henderson and Philippe Coutinho, who is now at Villa.
Liverpool will be confident of beating United at Old Trafford after Erik ten Hag made a terrible start to the new era with a 2-1 defeat by Brighton followed by the hammering at Brentford. But the Reds are yet to win themselves, having drawn 2-2 at Fulham and 1-1 against Crystal Palace on Monday.
Klopp’s side are already four points behind title rivals Manchester City and cannot afford any more slip-ups. "We weren't happy with the [Fulham] performance," he said.
"Palace was really good but special because of red card. Can't remember seeing 10v11 where 10 put them under pressure so much. We did well. We want results and they help but we need performances to work with. We want results obviously, but it is about the performance levels as well."
