LIVERPOOL -- Jurgen Klopp has leapt to the defence of Liverpool's under-fire goalkeeper Loris Karius by insisting he does not pay any attention to what pundits Gary and Phil Neville have to say.
Former Manchester United defender and Sky Sports analyst Gary Neville was critical of Karius following mistakes made in last week's 4-3 defeat to Bournemouth, which prompted Karius to hit back at him in an interview with the Daily Mail.
Gary's younger brother, Phil, was on "Match of the Day" on Sunday and urged Karius to "Keep your mouth shut, do your job" after the shot-stopper endured another difficult afternoon in the Liverpool goal during the 2-2 draw with West Ham United.
"The pundits are former players and a lot of them forgot obviously completely how it felt when they got criticised -- and especially the Neville brothers," Klopp told a news conference at Melwood on Monday.
"I have to say the one who was a manager [Gary], he obviously should know that too much criticism never helps but he's not interested in helping a Liverpool player I can imagine.
"But that makes the things he says not more sensible. He showed he struggled with a job to judge players, [so why do] we let them talk about players on television?
"The only thing I can do is I don't listen to them. I'm pretty sure Carra [former Liverpool defender and Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher] doesn't speak too positively about Man United players, and obviously the Neville brothers don't like Liverpool and if they can cause bigger problems than we already have, I think they'll try it -- that's all."
The Reds boss added: "Now you have your headline, you're welcome. You should have asked the right question earlier.
"By the way, you can tell him I'm not on Twitter, so if he wants to tell me something, Twitter doesn't help."
Prior to the outburst on the Neville brothers, Klopp said managers and players learn to deal with the intense scrutiny they face from the media.
The former Borussia Dortmund manager says he tries to "protect" his players as much as possible, but admitted he cannot, ultimately, control what they do when they go out onto the pitch.
"That's part of our life," he said. "First of all, my job is to protect the players as much as I can in different situations, but they are alone on the pitch, I cannot go with them and say now left and now right.
"We have to prepare ourselves as much as possible. It's a normal situation -- to have criticism from outside, it's normal for me, for my players, for the goalkeepers.
"We all wish it would be different, but it's not. I'm not surprised about it -- in my very first press conference, I spoke a little bit about the English media and obviously most of you enjoy it a little bit being this harsh part."
Klopp had deflected an earlier question about Karius as he did not want to add to the growing storm around him.
"Whatever I would say about this would create headlines,'' he said, moments before launching into the Nevilles. "The good things, the bad things, and I am absolutely not interested in creating headlines so you can write what you want.
"There is nothing to say about it. A few things are obvious, a few things are not obvious, a few things are the truth, a few things are not right, but that is too much for me to think about.''
While Klopp was targeting the Nevilles, over on Twitter two former Liverpool players were having a go at each other.
Carragher had been critical of Karius, telling him to keep quiet and concentrate on his game -- comments which were effectively echoed by Phil Neville.
However, his former Liverpool teammate Dietmar Hamann, who had not heard Carragher's initial criticism, took issue with Neville's words and tweeted: "That's the most laughable thing I've read in a long time. Disrespectful to say the least.''
Having been informed Carragher had said a similar thing earlier, the former Germany international added: "Carra is out of order too. Karius is 23 years old and played over 100 top flight games. Outrageous comments, deserves a little more respect. You can criticise as much as you want but you don't tell an adult to shut up. Poor form.''
Carragher was soon on his case, simply replying on Twitter "Shut up," before following up with "...weren't telling me to shut up when I got you out of that Tokyo nick in 2005'' -- referring to when Hamann was arrested after some of the Liverpool players went out drinking following their defeat at the Club World Cup final.
However, Carragher later tweeted a screenshot of texts he says he exchanged with Hamann afterwards and stated: "Me and the Kaiser are OK now.''
Information from the Press Association was used in this report.