Jurgen Klopp insists Manchester United’s critics are wrong to write them off ahead of Sunday’s clash with Liverpool at Anfield.
Erik ten Hag’s side endured a miserable week – beaten 3-0 at home in the league by Bournemouth before crashing out of Europe after losing to Bayern Munich.
Premier League leaders Liverpool, who are 10 points clear of United, inflicted a humiliating 7-0 thrashing when the arch-rivals last met on Merseyside in March, but Klopp believes that “foreign” result will not help the hosts this weekend.
“I never like when the headlines are about United not being great before we play because it’s like, ‘OK, then this is the game where they can put everything right,'” Klopp said.
“I don’t follow United closely enough to know exactly what the problem is there, but I saw that Erik ten Hag was manager of the month last month. I saw that they were the team in form, so how could it all be wrong? I just don’t get it.
“We knew that day that 7-0 was a strange result that happens once in a lifetime. If it helps anyone for the next game, then it’s the team that lost 7-0, not the team that won 7 -0.
“Take all that into consideration and just play football against Liverpool’s historic rivals at Anfield – that in itself has to make it a special game. Really understand the situation and give it your all – that’s what I need.”
Sunday marks the start of a crunch period for Liverpool with Wednesday’s home Carabao Cup quarter-final against West Ham followed by next Saturday’s clash with title rivals Arsenal at Anfield.
“We’ll definitely need Anfield because it’s really tough and they’re all big games,” Klopp added.
“This group has never had a December together and December in English football is the hardest month ever. Now we have to show how much we have adapted.
“When you’re top of the table at the beginning of December people start thinking about different things but we don’t. I’ve been in the business too long for it to mean anything to me.
“It’s better than being 18th or 20th, but it’s still just a position for the moment and we have to keep working extremely hard and that’s so difficult when you don’t have any real time to recover.”
(Photo: Getty Images)
