Jurgen Klopp has said he would happily pay money to watch Liverpool’s New Year’s Eve encounter with Manchester City as a spectator.
Jurgen Klopp
Saturday’s meeting pairs together two high-flying teams, with Klopp’s Liverpool currently the Premier League’s highest scorers this season with 45 goals ahead of City and Arsenal, who have both found the back of the net 39 times so far.
Klopp is predicting a tense affair where the minor “details” will decide the result, and he insists his team needs to be solid defensively in order to overcome Pep Guardiola’s side.
“I would say we both should think about how we protect our own attacks because both teams are pretty good in counterattacks,” the Reds boss told a news conference on Thursday afternoon. “That’s a big thing.
“Both teams are good in possession so we have to defend both on our highest level. At the end, probably the detail will make the difference, I’m not sure. It’s nice to think about and to try everything you can in the game. That’s what we actually want.
“They are getting better since last year and we are getting better too. It will be a really interesting game, but it will be a different game to last year. It’s not exactly the same. We cannot play like last year and they will not play like last year. That’s really exciting.
“If I was not sitting on the bench, I would buy a ticket 100 percent for this game. That’s good.”
Klopp faced Guardiola’s Bayern Munich eight times when he was coach of Borussia Dortmund — winning three of the contests before his departure from the Westfalenstadion at the end of the 2014-15 campaign.
However, the Reds boss insists he will not preparing for the upcoming clash as if he was facing Guardiola’s Bayern.
“Maybe it’s a big surprise but I don’t play against Pep Guardiola, our teams play against each other and they are completely different,” he said.
“We know nearly everything about how Pep played with Bayern, but that’s not important anymore because now he’s at Man City — different players, different things to do, different systems. We are a different team.
“In this moment, both teams cannot be sure which ideas the other teams have and that’s what we have to accept. It’s not that we have a look back at the last few games against Pep Guardiola because we don’t play each other, our teams do.”
Liverpool are unbeaten at Anfield this season, scoring a Premier League-high 25 goals in front of their own supporters.
Klopp believes playing Saturday’s match at Anfield is one of very few “advantages” for his side.
“How I said before, there are not a lot of advantages before the game, the only real advantage that can be [is that] it’s at Anfield and we should try to use this advantage,” Klopp added.
“We are obviously not in the worst shape but, unfortunately, Man City [are not] too. That means it will be really difficult for both teams, I would say.
“How I said already, I’m really looking forward to it because we all love playing against the best and they are, for sure, in the group of best teams in the world. I’m happy to have the opportunity.”
