LIVERPOOL manager Jürgen Klopp has insisted that his side must show West Brom respect, as they showed how they can hurt teams the last time they met.
In last year’s fixture at Anfield the sides drew 2-2 thanks to an equaliser deep into injury time from Divock Origi.
Some fans, mostly of other teams, criticised Klopp for ‘celebrating’ the draw by making his players line up in front of The Kop and show their appreciation to the fans, and the manager hasn’t ruled out a repeat of that.
He said: “The differences between the Premier League and all the other leagues in world football is that [there are] big individual qualities in all of these teams.
“Nobody will go through and have at the end 120 points or something because there are a lot of difficult hurdles to jump over and West Brom is for sure one of them. They fight for every point.
“I respect them all and I showed it last year when we played West Brom. I celebrated the point and it was a little bit surprising for most of the people but I was happy.
“I don’t know in this moment if I would celebrate a draw again, it depends on the game we play on Saturday. Everything’s possible.”
The Reds have only won one of their last four meetings against The Baggies, drawing each of their last three, but Klopp believes this will have no effect on his players.
He added: “We don’t lose or win against another team because of the name or the common history; it’s because of performances.
“That’s what we have to do. If we want to be successful we should win a lot of games. First of all, we shouldn’t care about the name of the team, where we play them, at home or away, we have to win, we have to win, we have to win, that’s how it is.
“For this you need to be lucky in different situations, you need to force it sometimes, always you have to fight for it. I don’t make differences between these types of teams.”
Klopp will be buoyed by the return of Gini Wijnaldum to training, meanwhile Adam Lallana will likely be in line for a start after coming on as a substitute against Manchester United.
“Nobody is ruled out and Gini is on the way back. If nothing happens today or tomorrow, we have a big squad.”
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Lets hope the crowd don’t cross their arms and go all quiet if it gets nervy.
Its proper shit.
Lets hope the crowd don’t start taking picture of Pulis with their phones….that would be proper shit too.