Liverpool waiting on Salah news as Klopp fumes at Choudhury challenge

Jurgen Klopp was furious with Hamza Choudhury for a late challenge on Mohamed Salah that saw the Liverpool winger hobble out of his side's Premier League win against Leicester City. 

Liverpool snatched a last-gasp victory at home to Leicester through James Milner's 95th-minute penalty, moving eight points clear of champions Manchester City ahead of their fixture at home to Wolves on Sunday. 

The award of the stoppage-time spot-kick was hotly contested by Leicester, but VAR sided with referee Chris Kavanagh after Marc Albrighton tangled with Sadio Mane, who earlier opened the scoring before James Maddison's equaliser. 

Rather than discuss the decisive call of the contest, though, Klopp preferred to focus on Choudhury's rash lunge on Salah, for which the midfielder earned only a yellow card. 

Klopp cited an earlier incident involving Newcastle United’s Matt Ritchie as he questioned Choudhury's intentions in a clash with Salah that left Liverpool waiting for news on their star man. 

"It was a clear penalty, I stand here and should be only happy because of the way the boys did it," he told Sky Sports, adding: "But I cannot get over the Choudhury yellow card. 

"He should know better. He maybe was unlucky with Ritchie, but he has to calm down. You cannot only go for the man, a yellow card. 

 

October 5, 2019

"Mo is lying in the dressing room. How can he be okay? We don't know how he is, but that's hard. Three years in a row, we've been the team with the lowest yellow cards, we don't do these things. But that's really not okay." 

Choudhury was sent off for England Under-21s at the European Championships in June following an awful challenge on France's Jonathan Bamba, who suffered ankle ligament damage. 

The Leicester midfielder was then only booked for a tackle on Newcastle’s Ritchie in August which Steve Bruce described as a "horror challenge", with the Scotland international still out of action. 

Salah had been set for a period of rest during the upcoming international break regardless, with Egypt confirming his absence from their upcoming camp. 

"The technical team of the national team confirmed the decision to exempt Liverpool star Mohamed Salah from joining the current camp with the desire to rest him and ease the burden of games in this period in order to recover and get rid of the stress resulting from his successive participation with his club, so that he is in full physical and mental health to participate in the next official commitments," a statement from the Egyptian Football Association read.