Klopp calls for Liverpool to treat Man Utd game as most important 3 pts in life
Jurgen Klopp has called for Liverpool to be “angry in a good way” in order to avoid falling victim to an upset against Manchester United.
Liverpool will move top of the Premier League standings if they beat United at Anfield on Tuesday night, albeit with champions Manchester City not due to play their game in hand against Brighton until the following day.
The Red Devils are being billed as major underdogs as they continue to struggle for consistency under Ralf Rangnick, but Klopp has warned his players that they cannot afford to be complacent given the individual quality within their rivals’ ranks.
“We don’t face a team who has problems or whatever,” The Reds boss said at a pre-match press conference. “We play Man United and if I go through the line-up, the goalkeeper is world-class, the last line is absolute top.
“You can choose… [Jadon] Sancho, [Bruno] Fernandes, [Anthony] Elanga or [Marcus] Rashford and a guy who now scored his 60th hat-trick (Cristiano Ronaldo). That’s the team we face, that’s what we have to prepare for and not what happened last week or something like that.
“If we let United do [what they want] they will cause us massive problems, so we have to be in the right mood, the people have to be in the right mood, like really, really ready to fight for three points – and not want to show we are in a better moment than United. Who is interested in that?
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“We have had a couple of times better moments than other teams and they have given us a knock – that’s it with a better moment, who cares?
“They want to have the three points that we need, so that’s the attitude we need to show. We have to be angry in a good way and all these kind of things; greedy, really, like you are if you have won nothing, like you would be with nil points and it is the most important three points in your life.
“That’s actually the attitude we need for this game because the quality is too high and they are too good for not being in that mood.”
Liverpool head into their clash with United on the back of a thrilling 3-2 win against City in the semi-finals of the FA Cup, which kept their hopes of an unprecedented quadruple alive.
The Reds can put huge pressure on City before their next outing against Brighton if they see off the Red Devils, who struggled to an unconvincing 3-2 win against bottom of the table Norwich last time out.
Klopp’s men, who already have the Carabao Cup in the bag, will then turn their attention to a Merseyside derby encounter against Everton on April 24, which comes three days before the first leg of their Champions League semi-final tie against Villarreal.
