Jürgen Klopp met with the media Friday ahead of Liverpool's clash with Manchester City at the Etihad Saturday afternoon. In the interview, the boss discussed how important 3 points would be for both sides, the positive impact of the international break on the club and how important the next 3 games are to Liverpool's season.
Both Liverpool and Manchester City need all three points from this match badly. The Citizens look to keep pace with Arsenal at the top of the table while Liverpool hope to keep their hopes alive for a Top-4 finish.
“Super-important game, that's the one thing that's not different to all the other years because obviously for us super-important, for City it's super-important,” Klopp said. “It's clear, against City you have to be on top of your game. You have to defend on a super-high level and you have to play football as well. That's normal, completely normal; with the kind of dominance they can show, it's really difficult not to forget that in your spells you have to play football as well and that's what we in the good games always did. That's it.”
A long break from domestic play can either be positive or negative for a club. Klopp views the recent international breaks as nothing but positive for the Reds.
“I was ready for a few days without analyzing this game [Real Madrid] again. I don't even have to talk about it anymore,” Klopp said. “There are two months left in the season, historically we have finished strong. We don't have a perfect position to go there, to fight for it, but it's possible. We have to win a lot of games but the more games we win, the more pressure we can make on other teams above us in the table.”
The Manchester City match is just the beginning of a tough stretch for the Reds. They also have a match at Anfield with Arsenal and a match away at Chelsea all coming in the space of a week.
“it's a like a Champions League week,” Klopp said. “I know we are out but if you go far enough you can have an English team in midweek in the Champions League, stuff like this. These things are possible and we had that already in the past. You want to play these games; we play City, Chelsea and Arsenal every season but in one week is pretty special. Yes, it's difficult, but it's the situation and now we are here. Most of the boys are healthy and let's try and help them and use them and bring them in the best possible shape and let's go.”
Liverpool missed a big chance to pick up 3 points after a loss to Bournemouth. Now they have no room for error against three of the top names in the EPL in the coming days. The Reds are refreshed and they need to be, because, as Kopp said, this will be a challenging but fun week.
