Jurgen Klopp, the manager of Liverpool, is adamant that the championship battle cannot be measured by using their matchup with Arsenal at the top of the league.
With more than half of the season remaining, Klopp does not think it will have a significant impact, even though success would put his team in first place by Christmas, even though the Premier League leaders come to Anfield just one point ahead.
Liverpool has only been here once before, in a draw against Manchester City last month. Since then, Pep Guardiola’s team has dropped to fourth place after winning just one of their previous four games.
“It’s pure joy when you’re first and 55 points ahead, and that’s when I love it the most.” “But, our current situation is not all that bad,” he remarked.
Matchday 18? That means that even though they will be the headlines they have to deal with, if we win, we are not over; if they win, they are not through either. We have 20 more games left.
“I honestly didn’t give it much thought because I’m more focused on the game tomorrow than I am on the implications for the remainder of the season”.
“We don’t think our situation is particularly remarkable or ask ourselves, ‘Wow, how did we wind up here?’ It’s just okay. We are where we deserve to be, in my opinion, but that is only the beginning.
“It’s possible that in March or April you’ll think, ‘Well, that’s a six-pointer, you win today and you’ve got them out of the way, or something,’ but that’s obviously a long way off and nobody gives these kinds of things much thought.
“It is just a super-important football game.”
Liverpool are currently exceeding expectations this season after finishing fifth in May and Arsenal, it can be argued, are ahead of them in terms of progress as this is their second successive campaign of being in a title race.
Klopp believes that experience, and their summer recruitment, makes them worthy rivals as they both attempt to break City’s dominance.
“I thought they looked like that (title challengers) last year to be honest and then some results kicked in,” he added.
“The team we faced (last season) was a super-strong team and then you bring in (Declan) Rice and (Kai) Havertz and it doesn’t make you worse. (David) Raya in goal doesn’t make you worse.
“Mikel could build exactly the team he wants; they are difficult to play, they are a good mix between physicality – big, strong, fast players – good technique, very good organisation, really well coached, well drilled and you see every year they make another step.
“They really have my respect, but we want the points anyway.”
Ryan Gravenberch is set to return after a muscle problem, but fellow midfielder Alexis Mac Allister (knee) and forward Diogo Jota (hamstring) are still out.
Left-back Andy Robertson, sidelined since a dislocated shoulder on Scotland duty in October required surgery, is expected to return next month.
“The problem is the shoulder is not there, the rest of the body is fine but we need to be patient a little bit longer,” said Klopp.
“He can do all the physical work already, which annoys him quite a lot because it is not allowed for ball training.
“When he is allowed to go shoulder-wise I think it is a short time until he will be back and we all hope it will be January, but I don’t know.”
