Soccer

Adam Bogdan says he was fouled for Watford’s opening goal

Liverpool’s stand-in goalkeeper admits he should have caught the ball initially

Liverpool’s Adam Bogdan fumbles before Watford’s Nathan Ake scores Watford’s first goal. Photograph: John Sibley/Reuters
Mon Dec 21 2015 - 11:38

Adam Bogdan feels he was fouled for Watford's first goal in Liverpool's 3-0 mauling at Vicarage Road — but still accepts full responsibility for gift-wrapping Nathan Ake's strike.

Stand-in goalkeeper Bogdan accepted he should have completed a regulation claim on the corner that instead led to Ake poking home for the hosts after just three minutes on Sunday.

The 28-year-old suggests Ake had committed a foul in dislodging the ball from his clutches — an assertion backed by Reds manager Jurgen Klopp — but still conceded he should have dealt with the danger.

Odion Ighalo's brace then consigned Liverpool to a fourth match without a win, leaving Bogdan offering an honest appraisal of his Premier League debut for the Anfield club.

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“I dropped the ball, of course,” Bogdan told Liverpool’s official club website.

“There’s a mistake there.

“After that I felt my hand was on the ball and I was going to bring it out.

“Obviously he knocked it out of my hand — but we are talking about split-seconds.

“Through the bodies of course it’s hard to see.

“I’m not blaming anybody but myself to drop the first ball.

“Watford were really good but we — and myself — gave them a head start.”

He added: “It’s not easy to recover after a goal like that in the first couple of minutes, it’s never going to be easy.

“Of course it hit us and Watford managed to score another goal, which was another blow.

“We tried to come back into the game and I think we gave everything, although I don’t think we played very well. But we tried.”

Liverpool now have a worse Premier League record under new boss Klopp than predecessor Brendan Rodgers this season.

Rodgers mustered three wins, three draws and two defeats in league action before he was ousted from the Anfield hotseat.

Klopp has arrived keen to complete a quick-fire revival, but has been unable to open his tenure with consistency.

The German’s league record now reads three wins, three draws and three defeats.

“If I could explain this do you think we would have done it?” said Klopp, when asked to account for his side’s inconsistency.

“But we’ll work on it. And that’s how the development sometimes works.

“There’s no problem, you just have to react to the maximum and that’s what we have to work on.

“The easy games everybody wins, the difficult games we have to win much more of than we have until now.”