Jurgen Klopp is not to fall into the trap of thinking Man City are to wilt under the pressure on Sunday as his side continued to their push to claw back the point deficit.
Liverpool will arrive at the Etihad on Sunday with the chance to move two points clear of City in the table after pegging back a point deficit that in mid-January stood at 14.
The caveat to that was Pep Guardiola’s side had played two games more, but Liverpool’s 10-match winning streak coupled with City dropping seven points has blown the title race wide open.
Guardiola claimed the 14-point gap was “fake” earlier in the week as the question of pressure comes to the fore for City, which will no doubt grow should Liverpool get a positive result.
But when the question of if City will feel the weight having seen a 13-point shift was posed to Klopp, he did not consider it a significant factor with Guardiola’s side still to have home comforts.
“I know it was 14 points, but it was two games in hand – I think it was Leicester and Arsenal away,” Klopp told reporters.
“Arsenal is not a game you cannot count the points directly in, and Leicester obviously not as well.
“I don’t know [the feeling if it was reversed], I’m not sure I’ve ever been 14 points ahead and all of sudden only one – I really don’t remember.
“I wouldn’t imagine I would feel more under pressure, to be honest. Focus on yourself, looking at the situation and the form you are in.
“We are not in a situation I can remember being in, maybe I was but I forgot it.
“That’s not an aspect I am thinking about, not that I think ‘Ahh, they’re under more pressure than us’ – they play at home, calm as ice in most of the games they play and we have to be as well.
“It’s an important game, very important game, it’s how we now realise that there is a season after this game. These games are as important as the others.
“Our programme is insane, we play City, Benfica, City, United and Everton – they will hope if we win one of the City games we will celebrate for three or four days, but we will not.
“For us, it’s very exciting and interesting and we’re really looking forward to it but it’s business as usual.
“It’s just a big game which we’ve had now since we started our chase properly, all the games were finals and this is no different.”
Into these, Reds.
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