The fake Jurgen Klopp 'shush' image that fooled everyone

Liverpool's 2-1 win over Newcastle on Sunday afternoon was, as they say, Pure Barclays.

By half time, the Reds were a goal and a man down away from home against one of the best teams in the league and looked to be in for a pasting.

However, Darwin Nuñez's second half double completed a memorable comeback, sending Liverpool fans everywhere wild.

Limbs were seen. Memes were shared. History was made.

Amid the chaos, one particular image from the afternoon stood out.

It was a photo of Jurgen Klopp smiling on the touchline, finger raised to his mouth, apparently 'shushing' the Newcastle bench.

Newcastle's notoriously attention-seeking assistant manager Jason Tindall had been caught doing the same to Klopp earlier in the game and it seemed the Reds boss had waited until the final whistle to have the last laugh.

The image was exactly the sort of petty, point-scoring sh*thousery that football fans lap up. And sure enough, the image of Klopp, finger to smirking lips, had gained thousands of likes, shares and impressions on social media in the aftermath of the match.

It was shared by ex-Liverpool players Jamie Carragher and Martin Skrtel and even used in Monday's print version of the Daily Telegraph.

Iconic.

The only problem was, it never happened.

The picture was actually the work of graphic designer and X user @LewVisualss, who wrote: "the whole of twitter have no idea..." before posting the original photo that had been used to create the digitally altered version.

With Nuñez's brace and Virgil van Dijk's sending off, few would've predicted that one of the main post-match talking points would be about deep fake imagery.

Nevertheless, as advanced photo editing becomes more accessible with the advances of AI, expect this kind of thing to become more and more common place on social media as altered realities meet fan trolling.

While the whole episode goes to show you can't believe everything you see, don't worry, Liverpool's comeback itself did actually happen!

Speaking after the match, Klopp – who set a new Premier League record with the victory – told Sky Sports that the win was more difficult than the famous comeback against Barcelona in the 2018/19 Champions League.

"It was much more difficult than the Barcelona game,” Klopp said. "That was at home and we played a sensational first game that was lost 3-0 but learned a lot about ourselves and knew we could hurt Barcelona if we defended them properly.

"This was completely different. We didn't start well, conceded a goal and a red card. We actually played better from that moment on with much more control. Newcastle struggled to create as we were more compact and fought really hard.

"At half-time, we said if we can turn this around it would be something to tell the grandkids - I see mine in ten days, so I will tell them. I have no clue what it means [for the rebuild] but in this moment, with my history of over 1,000 games I've never had something like that in that way, at Newcastle, with that atmosphere - it's crazy. I've never had that."