Jurgen Klopp has been speaking to the official Liverpool site ahead of our clash with Man Utd on Thursday night, and used the opportunity to say he is proud to be part of the historic North West rivalry.
Firstly he confirmed the truth in the rumours that he’d told his players and staff he wanted to be drawn against Utd.
“It was a feeling in the first moment when I saw who was in the next round. I first wanted to ask if it was possible in this round to get an English team – after everybody said it was, then I said I wanted Manchester United, that’s the truth,” he said.
“I cannot really explain [this]. It’s not the longest travel, but one of the most exciting games I could imagine because it’s Manchester United. We are really looking forward to the game, but we don’t know about the result [yet]. To get the opportunity to try again, that’s really enough for me.”
He then spoke about his pride at his involvement:
“I’m not too often proud, to be honest – sometimes with my family! But this is the second thing in Liverpool where I am really proud.”
“Now we play against Manchester United in a European tournament – that is absolutely cool. Maybe another person would say, ‘In the Champions League would be cooler’. Maybe, but it’s not a dream land. We are really excited about this game and everybody should be.”
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He finished by speaking about the importance of getting the next few weeks right in order to build momentum after back-to-back league wins:
“Now we’ll only play in two [competitions], so it’s easier to win in a row in the league because it’s not interrupted by other tournaments. Of course we know Crystal Palace was not the best game we’ve played this season, but at the end no team in the Premier League – no team in the world – will go through [a season] with only brilliant performances, so you have to take results on the average days.”
“That’s what we did in a special way. It was really good and we are in a better moment. In this moment we have more players than we can bring into the line-up, and it’s completely different to other moments in this season. If we handle this situation right, it could create quality.”