Use your head like Sadio and subscribe to the Liverpool FC newsletter Sign me up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Jurgen Klopp has slammed “brutal wrestler” Sergio Ramos for the part he played in wrecking Liverpool's Champions League final dream.

The Reds boss has previously kept his counsel on the antics of the Real Madrid skipper but two months on from Kiev he has broken his silence on the matter.

Klopp believes Ramos deliberately targeted Reds duo Mohamed Salah and Loris Karius.

Egypt winger Salah was forced off with a shoulder injury in the first half after being dragged to the ground by Ramos, who then inflicted concussion on Karius with an elbow to the head early in the second half.

Both incidents went unpunished by Serbian referee Milorad Mazic and Karius subsequently made two costly blunders as the Reds were beaten 3-1.

Asked about what Ramos did to 44-goal top scorer Salah, Klopp smiled: “We are opening that bottle again?

“I watched that back of course. Someone showed it to me immediately after the game.

“If you watch it back and you are not with Real Madrid then you think it is ruthless and brutal. You don't think 'wow, good challenge'.

“It is in a situation in the game where Mo tries to keep the ball, make a few yards and speed up the game. The thing is I saw the ref taking charge of big games at the World Cup afterwards and nobody really thinks about that later.

“I think 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 and say 'what is that?' It was ruthless.

“I don't think Mo would have always got injured in that situation, this time it was unlucky, but it is an experience that we cannot have.

“I'm not sure if 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.”

Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now

Ramos also enraged Klopp with his comments after the final when he laughed off the damage he had done and claimed that Salah could have played on with a pain-killing injection.

“Ramos said a lot of things that I didn't like. As a person I didn't like the reactions of him,” Klopp said. “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, and I have watched football since I was five years old, then you will see a lot of situations with Ramos.

“In the final the year before against Juve he was responsible for the red card for (Juan) Cuadrado. He touched him like that (presses a finger against flesh) and he makes a big act of it. Nobody talks about that afterwards.

“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 were two times in a row the winner of the Fair Play table. Not that it was our goal before the start of the season, we didn't say 'let's be beautiful and win that'.

“We are aggressive but I always use the word legal as well. Usually out there 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. Years ago Arsenal lost that game because the ref thought it was a red card for Jens Lehmann.

“It was after only a few minutes of the final and to play a final with 10 men then you have no chance, unless you are Tranmere in the play-off final at Wembley! Since then, it didn't happen.

“We had a game against Bayern in the Champions League final and it was a red card for Dante. The ref didn't want to do it. Always in life you need help from somewhere.

“Obviously 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.

“You ask me about it. It's not like I wake up in the morning and think 'Ramos!!' I am fine with it.

“In a final you need to have a bit of luck and we didn't have it. They had luck in different situations and we didn't. They scored a bicycle kick, come on! Of course that is luck.

“We all know (Gareth) Bale is able to do that but he probably put more balls from that situation in the stands than in the goal.

In the immediate aftermath of Kiev defeat cut deep. Klopp oversaw a sombre team meeting at Melwood at 6am after flying straight home from Ukraine. The message to his players was a defiant one.

“I was pretty much the only one that was not crying from all my family,” he revealed.

“Even my agent was crying because they felt so much for me. I didn’t cry because I really... I am not sure exactly why it is like this, but it was… I cannot change.

“They were only that sad and disappointed because they thought I was. I was of course, but I didn’t think it was the end of something.

“It’s only another step. Life is like this. We only can exist if everything works perfectly, then we cannot survive in that world out there.

“We have to accept sometimes that there is someone better, there is someone else with a little bit more luck. I accepted it long ago.

“I know I will be there again. I will try to go to the next final again and then we will turn it. That’s how I see it.

“I told the players in that meeting that I was proud of them. And I told them so. It was a fantastic journey to Kiev. It was outstanding.”

Aside from Ramos' antics, there's no question that Real's greater strength in depth contributed to the outcome of the final.

Match-winner Gareth Bale scored twice after coming off the bench, while after Salah's departure Klopp turned to Adam Lallana, who was short of fitness after an injury-plagued campaign.

The Reds boss believes the club's spending spree this summer has addressed that issue as they look to go one better and clinch silverware in 2018/19.

Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now

“We were a competitor in that game,” Klopp added.

“We surprised a lot of people who hadn’t watched us before too often in the first half an hour, it was the way we wanted to play.

“Lallana came on after a season which was of course not his season with the injury. He was there to play minutes but of course not 60. Do we whine? No, it’s football. We accept that and that’s all the reason I don’t think about it. You can say so many things about it but it doesn’t help a little bit.

(Image: PA)

“What we learned from it is that we have to add players because Madrid played with the best team they had. They had their first XI and then Bale was on the bench, and Asensio and Vazquez.

“This season we can play that football again plus new little skills here and there. It’s not about looking back and thinking how could that happen?

“After the 2013 Champions League final, I realised that life goes on, it’s not that I was torturing myself over it.

“I am a lucky person. I train one of the best clubs in the world. I earn a lot of money. I have lots of fantastic players around me. How can I be more happy or not in general life if I do win? It’s not for me, not a bit.

“I don’t feel the things that I won in the past. It’s only when people tell me. It’s long ago.

"I know in the next situation I will be desperate again to do it and I know people will then say: six finals (lost) in a row, something like that, but it doesn’t really bother me. I know the way to the finals."