'We're looking no further than Southampton'
Jürgen Klopp insists Liverpool's thoughts will be solely focused on Southampton as they attempt to move a step closer to Capital One Cup success on the south coast tomorrow night.
The Reds travel to St Mary’s for a quarter-final tie after previously overcoming Carlisle United and Bournemouth at home in the competition.
At his pre-match press conference, the manager was quizzed on his approach to the game and whether he has considered the prospect of reaching Wembley in his debut season.
Klopp said: “The quarter-final is far away from the final. When you are in the final, you have to be prepared to be in a good situation and have a squad in a good run.
“It is really far away but, of course, to win a title the only possibility is to go through all the rounds. This is a very important round with only eight teams in the tournament. It’s quite interesting.
“I’m excited, of course, and I’m looking forward to the game. We have to respect the situation – our situation and the situation of Southampton.
“In this moment, I can’t say which team I can play tomorrow because the last game was only two days ago. That’s the thing. We want to win. It’s a difficult game against Southampton, but to win titles is a cool thing.
“We only have to think about Southampton. It’s not important who could be in the semi-final. That’s the biggest fault you can make – to think about the next round and who we can get.
“It’s only Southampton and they are strong enough; they lost their last two games and so they want to strike back. If we want to go to the semi-final we have to fight for it and that’s what we’ll try to do.”
Liverpool met Ronald Koeman’s charges five weeks ago at Anfield, drawing 1-1 in the Barclays Premier League after a late equaliser from the visitors.
Klopp was aware of the Saints’ threats even before that encounter and hopes that knowledge can lead to a positive result tomorrow and a place in the last four.
He said: “Not only at Anfield, I knew Southampton before. They have a really good squad and are a good team with a brilliant offensive line. They’re all fit.
“[Graziano] Pelle, [Sadio] Mane and [Dusan] Tadic are difficult to play against, but we did not so bad at home in our early season. We had a set-play for the draw.
“Of course it’s important for us to know more about the opponent. We know much more about Southampton than we knew in October. If it helps depends on our performance tomorrow.”