Jurgen Klopp has denied claims Liverpool deliberately cleared snow from one side of the pitch against Leicester City.
Ground staff attempted to shift a heavy snowfall from the playing surface which had descended on Anfield ahead of the 1-1 draw with Claude Puel’s side.
The Reds’ attacking half was noticeably clearer than the Foxes’ which has led to accusations of gamesmanship in attempts to influence the stalemate.
But Klopp insists that no foul play took place during Wednesday’s half-time interval.
He said: “The situation was like probably everybody saw. When we were warming up, it started snowing but the pitch was completely okay when we went in.
“Then when we came out it was like full of hail or west snow. It was really difficult and pretty much, I would say, we had the first half around 80 per cent of the ball so one team only really suffered from that. It was us.
“But not because of that. Our ground staff tried to clear it but they didn’t have enough man power. They realised how difficult it is when they started doing it.
“There was no plan. I can promise that nobody told them clear their box, where we are more often.
“I heard now that people say it’s sportsmanship and it’s an advantage. You can see there’s an advantage as well [for Leicester] if their box is clean then it’s better to defend.
“It’s not much coincidence [in] the first half, we scored in a box full of snow so that’s how it is. We cannot change that but in England, people are obviously not used to it.
“In Germany you would give shovels to all the people, even in the stands [to] come on the pitch and help and you have 15 minutes to clear it.
“We had even commercial things going around on the pitch. Obviously it doesn’t happen too often. Next time, there will be no commercial.
“if it’s snowing on the Kop-hand side or the other side, we will have enough shovels to clear the pitch because that’s football.
“The [under-soil] heating obviously couldn’t deal with it. At the end it was a bit better. You saw that immediately than in the game but it was a difficult pitch to play on.”