Manager’s message Liverpool do not want repeat of ‘senseless’ attack on City coach

Jurgen Klopp has urged Liverpool supporters to take their seats at Anfield early rather than line the streets to welcome the team buses tomorrow, to avoid a repeat of the scenes which marred Manchester City’s Champions League visit last year (right).

City have voiced concerns about their coach journey and Klopp said Liverpool could only blame themselves for the enduring ill-will about the incident when fans threw bottles at the visitors’ coach.

There has been no coach welcome for any club since, after Klopp called for the tradition to end – those that took place prior to the City incident were organised in liaison with supporters’ groups.

“I’m a big believer of fan power – in the stadium. Come early into the stadium, come inside, nothing to do outside, wait for the team warming up, be there,” said Klopp.

“[The coach incident] was a senseless thing. If somebody at Man City is concerned still, then it’s our fault.

“Not that we did it all together, we all didn’t throw the bottle or whatever it was, but it was one of us. That’s why we are responsible.

All of us have to make sure something like this will never happen again.

“It’s long ago and since then nothing has happened. I don’t think it was Man City specific.

Pep Guardiola took exception to the reference to “one bottle” being hurled.

“The police knew about [it] for the Champions League game before and didn’t do anything,” Guardiola said.

“Hopefully it’s not going to happen, the same that happened two seasons ago when we arrive, which was more than one bottle.”

probably right now they are the strongest team in the world.”

It is a line he has used before and there is genuine admiration for the attacking, positive football that Klopp demands. As Guardiola wants the same, he cannot criticise Liverpool’s approach the way he could be dismissive of Antonio Conte’s 2016-17 Chelsea side, who are the only side to deny him a Premier League title since he has been in this country.

But a line was drawn. Guardiola remains angry at the attack on City’s team bus, when bottles and missiles were thrown in the streets outside the stadium and the vehicle was so badly damaged it had to be abandoned for the return journey. However, Guardiola insisted he was not personally intimidated by the atmosphere inside Anfield. Far from it.

“I love it, I like it,” he said. “I didn’t like what happened in the bus outside the stadium but in the stadium, when they support the team, it’s perfect, it’s lovely; that’s why we’re involved in this business, to be involved in this kind of experience in these stadiums.”

Guardiola also claimed that Liverpool’s challenge was good for him and City. “As a club we need this kind of rival after winning back-to-back [titles], that’s the kind of rival to put another step forward to understand, ‘OK, that is the level we have to face in the next years to work harder and take the right decisions’.”

The task for City has been made more difficult because goalkeeper Ederson, who was substituted at half-time during the Champions

League tie away to Atalanta in midweek, is out through a muscle injury. “He’s not able to play. I don’t know [how long he will be out for]. But he cannot play,” said Guardiola.

Given City are already without their best defender, Aymeric Laporte, their captain, David Silva, their big summer signing, Rodri, Leroy Sane and Oleksandr Zinchenko, then losing Ederson is a blow, even if Guardiola fiercely defended his understudy, Claudio Bravo – who has not played a league game since the final fixture of the 2017-18 season at Southampton, when the title was already won.

“We are not going to lose because of Claudio,” Guardiola insisted. “You have to respect this guy. He’s played at an incredible level, he won the Copa America, other cups, respect that guy. He is an incredible top, top keeper.”

Bravo is also, of course, not firstchoice and not a goalkeeper like Ederson, as Anfield, and the Kop, will surely remind him.

‘Liverpool are probably the best contender I have faced during my career’