“With Jurgen, it’s five minutes before a match and five minutes after a match.”
In December, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur played out a gripping top-two clash in the Premier League.
For a long time, it looked as though the heavyweight match at Anfield was going to finish 1-1. Mohamed Salah had put Liverpool ahead before Heung-min Son’s leveller for Spurs.
However, Roberto Firmino popped up with a stoppage-time winner to give the champions all three points.
Tottenham boss Jose Mourinho was beside himself, though, and believed the better team lost.
And at full-time, he told his opposite number Jurgen Klopp as much.
“I told him (Klopp) the best team lost and he disagreed, but that’s his opinion – if I behave the same way he does on the touchline, I do not stay there,” Mourinho told Amazon at the time.
With just over a month elapsed since their spiky conversation at Anfield, Mourinho and Klopp will come face-to-face once more when Spurs host Liverpool on Thursday evening.
It won’t be a top-two meeting like in December, however, with Liverpool and Spurs currently fifth and sixth respectively.
‘I’ve never had time with Jurgen’ – Mourinho on Klopp.
And speaking during his press conference, Mourinho spoke candidly about his relationship with Klopp after their heated exchange last time out.
“I’m not a friend of Jurgen’s because I’ve never had time with Jurgen,” said Mourinho.
“Nuno [Espirito Santo, Wolves boss], he was my player, Brendan [Rodgers, Leicester City manager] he worked in my club for a couple of years together.
🗣”I’m not a friend of Jurgen as I never had time with Jurgen”
Jose Mourinho describes his relationship with Jurgen Klopp after their disagreement on the touchline in the reverse fixture earlier this season pic.twitter.com/6Nn4Nju8F9
— Football Daily (@footballdaily) January 27, 2021
“So, when you have something in common and you know the person well, you can say, ‘I like him, he’s my friend, I don’t like him, he’s not my friend’.
“With Jurgen, it’s five minutes before a match and five minutes after a match. What can I say about Jurgen? He is a colleague that I respect.”
Mourinho also said that he does not expect out-of-favour midfielder Dele Alli to leave Spurs before Monday’s transfer deadline.
Alli has been linked with a move to Paris Saint-Germain, which would see him link up with former Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino, with the 24-year-old having fallen down the pecking order under Mourinho.
“I am saying that since the beginning of the transfer window, I was not expecting anyone to leave, I was not expecting anyone to come,” said Mourinho.
“At January 27, not long until the end, I don’t believe anything is going to happen.
“Football is football. The transfer window is open, sometimes unexpected things happen, but I don’t expect it.”
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