Joris Gnagnon has apologised for an ‘odious’ foul on Liverpool’s Yasser Larouci.
Gnagnon was sent off after upending the teenager during the latter stages of the Reds’ friendly defeat to Sevilla at Boston’s Fenway Park on Sunday night.
Jurgen Klopp admitted that Larouci was ‘lucky’ not to have suffered a more severe injury following the challenge in the 80th minute of the game.
He said: “[It’s] much too early in the season to create headlines with saying the things I think about the situation.
“Let me say how the situation is with Yasser; it looks like he was lucky but, of course, how it always is with these things we have to wait a little bit.
“He couldn’t keep on playing, so that’s the first not-so-good sign but in the dressing room it was OK.”
“He hit him full throttle and, in that moment, [if it was] a little bit different position where he hit him then it’s done,” added Klopp.
“He rolls… he is a sports boy so that was OK, nothing happened there.
“I don’t know 100 per cent. It looks like he was lucky but I only spoke quickly to the Doc and that’s what he said, but we have to see.”
Gnagnon issued a public apology for the challenge on Larouci after the game.
“I would like to publicly apologise towards Liverpool, the family of the player and its supporters. It was an odious act on my part,” he wrote on Twitter.
“Whatever the reason, it’s not what should be seen on a football pitch.
“All my prayers are with the player and his family.”
Liverpool suffered their second successive defeat with the game at Fenway, following Friday’s 3-2 defeat to Borussia Dortmund in Indiana.
Divock Origi had cancelled out Nolito’s 38th-minute opener for Sevilla but the Spanish side snatched a late victory courtesy of an open goal from Pozo.