Jurgen Klopp warns of his Liverpool side that Ralf Rangnick’s Man United will ‘go for it’ in the biggest clash
Jurgen Klopp has warned his Liverpool side that Manchester United will “go for it” when they visit Anfield on Tuesday for a clash between “the world’s two biggest clubs”.
United will travel to their rivals on the back of a 3-2 win at home to Norwich on Saturday which, combined with surprise defeats for Tottenham and Arsenal at the weekend, puts them back in the hunt for a place in the top four of the Premier League.
While the main aim is securing a place in next season’s Champions League before Erik ten Hag’s expected arrival as manager in the summer, United will also be motivated to avenge their 5-0 thrashing at the hands of Liverpool at Old Trafford in October in what turned out to be Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s penultimate home game in charge.
And Klopp says the visitors will look to follow the win over Norwich with another positive result against his Liverpool side, who will go above Manchester City at the top of the table if they avoid defeat on Tuesday, live on Sky Sports.
“It’s a big game, it’s a massive game – the two biggest clubs in the word, I would say,” said Klopp. “Maybe in Spain two will say differently, but two of the biggest clubs in the world, for sure.
“Massive history, big fights in the past – big fights since I’m here. We lost strange games against United, we took a while to win there. Some players had to learn to deal with it because of how much it means to them. But we should have learned – we’ve had enough time to do that.
“This time it’s an incredibly important game for both teams. Both teams are fighting for being in the Champions League next year – or more, we will see.
“United won their last game. They were not overly happy with the performance, but the results from other games opened the door again. That’s the Man Utd we will face – they will go for it and we have to make sure that, if they want to quality for the Champions League, they have to do it without our points. But an intense 95 minutes will have to be played.”
Klopp describes Rangnick relationship as ‘on hold’
Tuesday’s game will be the 14th time Klopp and Ralf Rangnick have gone head to head as managers, but the first time they have met outside of Germany.
The Liverpool boss praised the “incredible jobs” Rangnick has done throughout his career, but admitted it has been hard for his counterpart to “gain momentum” since he was appointed as interim manager in November.
Asked how he would describe his relationship with Rangnick – who he has beaten only twice in his career – Klopp simply said: “On hold.”
The Liverpool boss went on to add: “We haven’t had contact since he was at United. I think that’s just due to respect – I respect his job, he respects my job.
“I cannot make a Klopp-Rangnick game of it – I don’t want to. I respect him for everything what he did during his career – incredible jobs wherever he was. He took a difficult one at Man Utd obviously – big expectations and actually no time to get there because in our business it’s like this.
“I think Ralf tried to organise the team, bringing in a clear structure with the squad you have. United played some really good games but, because it’s United, even when you win the games it’s difficult to gain momentum.
“But they concede less goals. You can see the changes he made, the parts he improved. But when we prepared the game, I didn’t think about Ralf in that moment because you prepare for the team. It’s a very important football game but the managers probably will not score the decisive goal.”
