Jurgen Klopp believes Loris Karius suffered a concussion during the second half of Liverpool’s 3-1 UEFA Champions League final defeat to Real Madrid and that’s why he made two horrendous goalkeeping errors.
Karius was hit by Real’s Sergio Ramos off the ball, was treated on the pitch but carried on.
Minutes later he made two massive errors, throwing the ball straight against Karim Benzema and then letting a long range effort from Gareth Bale slip right through his grasp.
The German goalkeeper had a concussion test and evaluation in Massachusetts days after the final which determined he had suffered a concussion and now Klopp has had his say on it all.
“We don’t use it as an excuse, we use it as an explanation,” said Klopp. “For me, it is 100% the explanation [for his performance]. He was influenced by that knock - that is 100%. I got all the pictures from different perspectives, saw it and thought ‘how can we all think that the boy who didn’t show any weakness in that game until then made these big mistakes in a very important game and nobody thinks it’s because of the knock he got?’ How can we think that? That was, for me, the explanation and I thought: ‘OK, come on, we need to check that.’
“I thought it was too late, you cannot check that. But now I know a concussion isn’t coming and going in a day - if you have one, you see it days later. Five days after the final, Loris had 26 of 30 markers for a concussion still. That’s clear.”
Several reports have linked Liverpool with signing a new goalkeeper this summer but moves for Alisson and others have faltered, so it appears Karius will remain at Anfield.
