Jurgen Klopp claimed he "didn't see" the challenge from James Milner that provoked outrage from Pep Guardiola as Liverpool faced Manchester City on Sunday.
The last two Premier League champions missed the chance to go top of the table after a pulsating 2-2 draw at Anfield.
Sadio Mane saw his second-half strike cancelled out by Phil Foden's equaliser, before Mohamed Salah's wonder goal was similarly negated by Kevin de Bruyne's late leveller.
But City boss Guardiola was left incensed by a challenge from James Milner on Bernardo Silva which he felt should have earned the Liverpool man a second yellow.
Milner had already been booked towards the end of a first half in which he was tormented by Phil Foden down Liverpool's right flank.
And Guardiola could be seen on the touchline demanding a second yellow after the 35-year-old took out Bernardo with the score still 1-1.
The City manager later said it was "clear" Milner should have been sent off, telling Sky Sports : "It's a yellow card. It's clear. It's Anfield, it's Old Trafford. In our situation a City player is sent off.
"It's too much clear. It was a second yellow."
Klopp was also asked about the incident after the match, and said: "Pep got a little bit outraged over that.
"I didn't see but I saw Pep's reaction obviously but I didn't know exactly why he did that. Milly did incredibly well first half and it is not easy to defend these guys."
City targeted makeshift right-back Milner throughout the game, and Liverpool were lucky to go in level at the break after the visitors missed a raft of first-half chances.
Liverpool came out with much more attacking intent, and Klopp said: "Thank god a football game has two halves.
"We are really happy about the second and not so happy about the first for obvious reasons.
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"We did a lot of things wrong in the first half and City did a lot of things right in the first half so we never got really in the game.
"We weren't much worse, we never played enough football. I was most happy in my career about the half-time whistle. It was never planned that we played like this and we needed half-time and we used half-time and played a really good second half."
Klopp outlined what he told his team to change in their second-half performance, saying: "We had long balls [in the first half] which didn't make sense.
"All these things we changed in the second half immediately. We were now in the game and scored wonderful goals with the ball. The message was to play the extra pass. We didn't do that in the first half at all."
