Scoring the two goals against Liverpool a week or so again for Crystal Palace in a 2-1 win, Christian Benteke got the revenge he wanted over his former club.
Well, we say revenge, but the Belgian forward would never use that exact word.
Speaking to Foot/Magazine this week, the former Liverpool striker did, however, reveal he did want to prove Jürgen Klopp wrong a little bit.
He said: “It’s only human, but I didn’t want to force my game. When I scored, even if I tried to hide it, I was very happy, but I stayed respectful because a lot of players would have provoked the manager, the crowd. That’s not in my nature.”
Explaining he didn’t ‘hold a grudge’ against his former manager, Benteke knew quite early on that he would need to move to further his career when the Dortmund legend took over at Anfield.
He explained: “I didn’t fit in his plans, what else could I do? I asked him one thing: to let me go at the end of the season. I went to find Klopp to tell him how I felt, that I understood his decision, but that he didn’t have the right to stop me from leaving to carry on my career. However, during the season, they were his choices. I wasn’t going to go and complain.
“I can’t hold it against him. I was allowed to be frustrated, but it’s not one person who was going to destroy everything I built and that I will build. In any case, I wouldn’t have let that happen. In my head, I just told myself: if it doesn’t work here, it’ll work elsewhere.”
That it did, as, signed for £26.5m last summer, Benteke is now on 14 goals in 33 league appearances for the Eagles, and has helped them beat the likes of Liverpool and Chelsea as they pulled away from the relegation zone.
As for his time at Anfield, does Benteke see it as a failure? Not really.
He said: “For me, failing is when you start something, do it and it doesn’t come off. Thing is, I never got a chance to express myself enough to speak of a failure.”
