Klopp tells Reds to get under City’s skin
JURGEN SAYS STAYING ON TAILS OF LEADERS WILL ‘ANNOY’ THEM
JURGEN KLOPP has told his team the key to overhauling Manchester City in the title race is simple: “Be as annoying as possible!”
Liverpool will close to within three points of the Premier League leaders if they beat Leeds tonight, prompting Pep Guardiola last week to claim they are “a pain in the ass”.
Klopp insisted that is exactly what Liverpool must be to ensure that if City “go soft”, then the Reds will be ready to pounce in the “decisive” months of March and April.
“We try to be as annoying as possible, somehow, until we have a chance to overtake,” said Klopp.
“What Pep said, and maybe told me, we are a pain in the lower back, or can be to them. That’s a good description, and that’s how it should be. We are pushing each other, that is how it is a little bit, it just keeps you going. There is no chance to get a bit soft, because the other one will be there immediately to catch you.”
Klopp is a firm believer that the key moments in the campaign come in March and through the Easter period in mid-April. That means somehow staying with their impressive rivals until that decisive period and he argued the intense rivalry between the pair inspires them both.
“It’s been going a while that both teams are able to do some special stuff, I have to say,” added the Reds manager. “And that’s with all respect, because City are doing something incredible. I don’t forget the other teams who are pushing too – Chelsea, Man United, Arsenal, Tottenham, whoever is there. But we are pushing each other. “What I always said is, you have decisive moments of the season but it is not now, it is not February, it is March, April, rather. So you have to be close enough to make a decision in your direction, and I don’t know if that will be the case because what we do is pretty special, and I don’t expect that to happen every week.”
Klopp insisted that there is still hunger around Anfield to fight all the way with Guardiola’s side.
He said: “We play Tottenham, still, we played United as well, and it’s not that we just count those points, like yeah, done, done, done, and we only wait for the middle of April for the City game.What the boys did over the past four years is pretty special. And I’m happy with that, but not overly happy – not that happy that I think, ‘OK that is enough’.
LIVERPOOL (probable): Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Konate, Van Dijk, Robertson; Henderson, Fabinho, Thiago; Salah, Origi, Mane.
LEEDS (probable): Meslier; Llorente, Ayling, Dallas, Struijk; James, Forshaw, Koch, Harrison; Klich, Raphinha.
Pep said we are a pain. It’s a good description