Jürgen Klopp has outlined why today’s clash with Hull City at Anfield is Liverpool’s ‘most important’ fixture of the season so far.

The Reds are back on home soil this afternoon and the manager has used his official matchday programme notes to insist that the encounter holds great significance, simply because it is the next game.

Klopp told ‘This is Anfield’: “This afternoon is our most important game of the season! Why? Because it is the next one! It is the only game we can influence at this moment and the only opponent we can look to beat.

“I know this sounds very simplistic and it might be dismissed as ‘football speak’. But believe me, it is the attitude we have had as a team and squad since the full-time whistle went at Derby in the cup game and it must be the attitude from everyone connected with this club until the final kick of the game today.

“I’ve heard fixtures like this described as ‘defining’ for Liverpool and that these are the games that will ultimately shape what we do and don’t achieve this season. This is true but only because it is true of every fixture.

“To repeat again: the next fixture is the ‘defining’ game, because it is next. For no other reason – not the name of the club or the badge on the shirt.

“The Premier League is special, in terms of top-flight football, for the uniquely competitive nature of it. ‘No easy games’ is a simplistic way of putting it and I am told this is an old-fashioned response in England.”

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