Klopp: If any team deserves a special atmosphere, it's this one

The Reds will aim to move a step closer to securing a top-four berth by clinching three points against the Potters.

And Klopp feels supporters can play their part by conjuring up similar decibel levels to the ones reached against AS Roma on Tuesday night.

“We are desperate [for the points] as well,” the manager told his pre-match press conference. “We have exactly the same situation as Stoke. We want to win this game - it’s only about this one game. From my point of view, this is the game of the season. That’s it.

“It’s always like it is - you create the basis and you go through all the difficult situations so that you are in a situation where you have the finals or final. And this is a final for us.

“That’s why I said immediately after the [Roma] game, the atmosphere was outstanding. I know it’s kind of a tradition that at 12.30 the atmosphere is not that good.

“Go to sleep tonight at nine o’clock and come tomorrow in the stadium and be at your best.

“That’s what we try to do and I would really like to ask everybody for doing exactly the same - making a real special atmosphere.

“Think about the [Roma] game from Tuesday - if this team doesn’t deserve the most atmosphere ever at 12.30 then I don’t know [who does].”

Stoke head into the weekend in 19th position in the Premier League table and are in need of points as they aim to emerge successfully from a relegation battle.

Klopp is aware of the threat Paul Lambert’s team can pose at Anfield and, therefore, is not planning to make wholesale changes to his line-up.

He said: “It will be a real challenge. Paul, who I know, is a Dortmund legend. They were not the most lucky team in the last few weeks; they lost a few games in the last minutes, missed chances by themselves, big chances, and then they conceded, as sometimes happens. They are very intense, very direct, a lot of fight for second balls and we have to face a lot of challenges on the pitch.

“I was a lot of times in my life in a similar situation, fighting for the league as a player was my life! I know about their emotions and I know how desperate they are to win the game.

“In the end, and it’s not that I want them to go down or whatever, but if they want to stay up it needs to happen without the points of Liverpool. It needs to because we need them as well and we have a very difficult situation.

“A lot of people are probably expecting [us to be] resting him, leaving him out and so on, but in the end players can be injured in training in nothing, or get ill overnight. There is no guarantee.

“As long as we are fit, we have to use the boys. We have to play them and that’s what we’ll do because we respect Stoke, because we respect the competition and because we have really big targets, goals and ambitions.”