Klopp has recently been making a series of comments about the amount of penalties Manchester United are awarded which made former Premier League referee Mark Clattenburg accuse the German coach of playing mind games in an attempt to influence officials.
Liverpool currently sit second on the Premier League table, three points behind leaders Manchester United and the meeting on Sunday will decide who remain top of the chasing pack.
In his pre match press conference ahead of the game, Klopp was asked if his recent comments about Liverpool’s archrivals is an attempt to induce officials, and the former Borussia Dortmund manager explicitly clarified what he said about Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s men.
“Am I surprised that somebody is talking about what I said about the Southampton game? No, I’m not,” he said. “But I’m not Sir Alex, and for different reasons. When he [Clattenburg] said we tried something with mind games, I was speaking directly after the Southampton game.
‘Between this moment and then we had another game and I didn’t think for a second about the United game in that moment. But before the game against Southampton, I saw the stats about the penalties, and that’s why I mentioned it.
He added: “When people like Mark Clattenburg now are speaking like they speak, it always says much more about them than it could ever say about me. If he would be in my situation, he obviously would play mind games. Unfortunately, I have no skills for playing mind games, that’s my problem.”
