Jurgen Klopp insists Liverpool must stay focused on their final fixtures of the season and ignore the possibility of Manchester City slipping up at the conclusion of an exhilarating Premier League title race.
The Reds moved back to the top of the table with a comprehensive 5-0 victory over relegated Huddersfield, with Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah each bagging a brace following Naby Keita’s opener after only 15 seconds.
City will return to the summit if they overcome Burnley on Sunday, but Klopp stressed he is not counting on Pep Guardiola’s side suffering a surprise setback.
Instead, the Liverpool manager feels his side need only to concentrate on next Saturday’s trip to Newcastle in their penultimate league fixture and then the visit of Wolves the following weekend.
He said: ‘Why should we think where City could slip or not? We play Newcastle in the league, Newcastle – that’s their last home game.
‘I’m not sure if there is a traditionally outstanding relationship between the cities or something like that or an exchange of points when you need it.
‘It’s not like it is, we will go there and they will fight, they fight with all they have in their last home game and we have to be ready. We don’t have to think about anything else.
‘And then last game (against Wolves) – wow. Maybe it’s like this, if they win then they are for sure seventh in the league, if they want to go for that then you will see that as well. It’s a really difficult team to play against.
‘If we do the job in these two games and something happens in the other games then we are there, if not then we still did our best, our 100 per cent best and that’s the only thing we can really expect from us.
‘You cannot ask for luck, you cannot ask for destiny, you have to work for it and then the rest around it happens and that’s exactly what we do.’
In ruthlessly dispatching Huddersfield, Liverpool moved on to 91 points – a total that would already be enough to have secured the league title in many seasons gone by.
Klopp added: ‘If we can have 97 (points) then let’s go for it, let’s go for it and then we’ll see. It’s still history. We said we wanted to create our own history, that’s what we tried, that’s what the boys did.
‘These boys are outstanding, they are the reason we are where we are now. Let’s carry on and we will see where it ends.’