Jurgen Klopp confessed his red card was "probably deserved" during Liverpool's thrilling victory over Manchester City on Sunday evening.
The Reds manager was given his marching orders by referee Anthony Taylor in the closing stages at Anfield after aiming a barrage of choice words at the nearside linesman. Klopp was furious that there was no foul blown after Bernardo Silva challenged Mohamed Salah in the City half.
Salah opened the scoring with a sublime individual effort in the second half but that did little to placate Klopp, who was a typically-passionate figure on the touchline. Emotions spilled over after Silva's tackle and the German was dismissed by Taylor, trudging down the tunnel to watch the rest of the match from the stands.
"In the end, probably deserved," Klopp told Sky Sports of his red card. "But you cannot have this situation. It is the clearest foul I ever saw in front of the linesman and he is not bothered. It is clear. They just watch the game but we [the managers] are involved."
Despite his sending-off, Klopp declared the result was a "perfect" one for his side, who came into the match as underdogs after a poor start to the season. He said: "Performance, really, really good, in an incredibly intense game.
"We defended at an incredibly high level for 99 minutes almost. They had their moments but especially in the box we did extremely well. This was for us obviously big today. We showed up today and that is all we wanted to do.
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"City didn't have these counter attack situations, we had them three times. The situation around the goal is just sensational awareness from Alisson and outstanding from Mo [Salah]. He might miss one but he will not miss two in a similar situation. Goals decide the game but there were so many good football moments against what I would say is the best football team isn't the world."
Klopp added: "Three points. We have to recover. Wednesday, West ham is coming here and that is the next tough one. It was really good, it was the best that could happen here today."
There was some confusion in the second half when Salah's No. 11 showed up on the fourth official's board, suggesting the Egyptian forward was about to be substituted. Klopp was speaking to his player at the time to give him some tactical instructions and he confirmed it was an error that the number was displayed, with Salah playing on.
"No he was not supposed to be off, I wanted to speak to him," Klopp said of Salah. "I did not know the number showed up, that was not the plan."
