Klopp eager to keep up personal record against City
Jürgen Klopp admits he is impatient to send his Liverpool team out onto the pitch again as he prepares to put an undefeated record against Manchester City on the line on Saturday.
The German suffered his first loss at the helm of the Reds before the international break, with Crystal Palace claiming a 2-1 victory at Anfield almost a fortnight ago.
Klopp’s wait for an opportunity to respond is nearing an end – a trip to the Etihad Stadium to face the Barclays Premier League leaders awaits his side tomorrow evening.
He took on City twice during his successful tenure at Borussia Dortmund, winning once and drawing once in the Champions League, and is eager to chalk up a similarly positive result with Liverpool.
The manager said at his pre-match press conference: “I played [them] with Dortmund twice and never lost!
“I think eight players from that team are still there at the moment. They have high quality – but the best news is, it’s football. So we have a chance.
“I’m looking forward to the game. Two weeks is long enough after Crystal Palace. Now we have the next chance.”
Having overseen seven matches in just 22 days until the pause for international football, Klopp did appreciate an extended period of time to work with the players not away with their countries last week.
He added: “We had eight players here because Jose Enrique could train for the first time since I’ve been here. The other seven were the same seven that were here [last time].
“So nothing has changed. I heard we had more players here but it was not the truth, they were only a little bit earlier because some of them only had one game.
“This week was good. The first two or three days were good for recovering and then we started with training. We could work on many things.
“It would be better if I could speak Spanish this week because all of these players were Portuguese or Spanish, but it was OK with English!
“Now they are all back and we have time to make the last steps on the way to Man City.”