Jurgen Klopp has warned Liverpool against falling into a trap against struggling Manchester United
Klopp claimed last season's 7-0 win will only embolden Erik ten Hag at Anfield.
Liverpool head into the weekend as Premier League leaders and are aiming to inflict a third successive win against their historic rivals at Anfield
United's last win at Anfield came in early 2016
The injury-hit Red Devils have lost seven Premier League games already this term and find themselves 10 points off Klopp's side
Klopp says the statistics and the form book mean little as he challenged his team to avoid letting complacency set in.
Klopp
"Yes, I do not like all this talk around it,"
"It is always like this. The more bad things people say about them, the stronger they will show up. That is always the case. I don’t like that.
"I don’t know about the situation there. I am interested in our situation. It is a home game and we have to show up. We are in our own stadium, we have to create an atmosphere and go for them and not think about anything else.
"I will make sure from our point of view that we will be 100% focused on the right stuff. But we are human beings and there is a noise around and when I am aware of it that means that there is obviously something going on.
"It is all fine. For us it is an important game. It was really tricky with this game tonight, when you see the pitch, a deep soft soft pitch, you think everything could happen.
"You have to play a few players who you might have thought, ‘why them?’ but you cannot just skip the competition. We came through and now the full focus is on (Sunday).”
Klopp added: “It is a home game. It is for the people. We know what it means. No-one would expect us not to care. We care a lot. We cannot go nuts before the game already. We have to start the game properly.
"There is space to improve in our football. One of our best games was against Aston Villa and they are obviously flying through the league. They had a problem against us, at least.
“A few players had a rest (against USG in the Europa League on Thursday night), a few players had rhythm with a few minutes and it is really the best outcome with the games coming up; Wednesday, Saturday, Thursday, Sunday, Wednesday. Crazy.
"I’m not sure what the other schedules are but that is the worst you can get and that is why we made the changes tonight. From now on they are all finals. That is how it is.”
Klopp has played down expectations of a similar scoreline he labelled a "freak result".
Klopp said: “I never like when the headlines about United are not great before we play because it's like 'OK, then it is the game where they can put everything right'.
"I don't follow United closely enough to know exactly what the problem is there but I saw Erik ten Hag was manager of the month last month and I saw they were the team in form in the last month so how can it be all wrong? I just don't understand it.
"And yes, the 7-0 we knew that day it was a freak result that happens once in a lifetime. If it helps anyone for the next game it is the team who lost 7-0 and not the team who won 7-0.
"If you take it all out of consideration and just play a football game against the historical rival of Liverpool at home at Anfield and that itself must make it a special game and that's what I want to see from us, a special game. Really understand the situation and give your all, that's all I need."
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