Jurgen Klopp has urged Everton not to be overly aggressive in their approach against his Liverpool team, hoping the Merseyside derby is still a football game .
Liverpool are at a crucial stage of a campaign that has promised much, with the Champions League quarter-final second leg to come against Manchester City after this weekend s short trip across Stanley Park.
And having seen Mohamed Salah fall victim to a knock in the stunning 3-0 home win over City, making the Egyptian a doubt, Klopp does not want to see any further injuries on Saturday.
While he says he understands the passion of a local rivalry, he believes Everton have not always played the game fairly in his time at Anfield.
I have nothing to say on Everton s season – that s not my job, said Reds boss Klopp. All I know is that, this weekend, they will be motivated to the highest level.
They have a very good home record. If they struggled – I don t know if they see it like that – it was away, but now they have won at Stoke. Their last game was Man City, but that s a different game obviously.
They are a really good team. [Yannick] Bolasie is back, [Theo] Walcott is a new signing, [Cenk] Tosun is in a good moment. They have it all together, except [Gylfi] Sigurdsson is injured. That s a good football team. In defence, they are very experienced.
A to Steven Gerrard s hat-trick against Everton in 2012. The first in a Merseyside derby for years.
— Liverpool FC (@LFC)
I think each Evertonian thinks that, at Goodison, there must be a few extra per cent of desire [in a derby]. We need to be ready for that, 100 per cent, but I hope at the end it is still a football game.
In the last few years, it was always like that. There is always at least one harsh challenge – overly harsh challenge. In all the derbies I have played so far, one [player] has thought I need to do this overly hard.
I hope we can go through the game without that. We all have our targets that we need to have the players for. We will be ready for hard challenges – 100 per cent. It s a derby.
We need to be on fire again, then we will have a good chance.
