Klopp wary of Huddersfield 'trap'
Jürgen Klopp has warned Liverpool not to fall into the trap of underestimating Huddersfield Town.
The Reds pick up their Premier League campaign after the international break by travelling to the home of the Terriers for Saturday’s evening kick-off at John Smith’s Stadium.
Klopp’s third-placed side are 17 points ahead of their opponents in the table, with Huddersfield yet to win in the top flight so far this season.
The Liverpool boss is a keen follower of the Yorkshire club’s fortunes due to his close friendship with their manager David Wagner – which dates back to their time as teammates at FSV Mainz in the early 1990s.
And the German has been scrutinising Huddersfield’s performances rather than their points total in preparation for this weekend’s fixture.
“I watch them more because I want to see how David is doing,” Klopp told Liverpoolfc.com during a pre-match interview at Melwood.
“It’s a typical football thing – I heard a few people talking about Huddersfield: ‘Not good enough here, not good enough there, they have to score more.’ They had more possession against Tottenham than Tottenham. Not a lot of teams can say that about themselves. At Burnley they had more possession.
“They play proper football, they are difficult to catch. They play different systems. So far it was unlucky.
“This game is a trap, a 100 per cent trap.
“We are third with 20 points, they are pretty much bottom of the table. That’s why analysis is so important; if you only used the table to analyse a team, you would say ‘They don’t score a lot, they conceded a few and they are third from the bottom so obviously not a good football team.’ Then we’d have a big problem.
“But, thank God, we have a lot of people working on analysis, not only against PSG or whatever. That’s good, so we have all the information we need.”
Last term saw Huddersfield compete in the top tier of English football for the first time since 1971-72 and Wagner’s team defied expectations to preserve their Premier League status via a 16th-place finish.
They have collected just three points from eight matches so far this season – but that tally does not tell the full story of their improvement, according to Klopp.
“We know it will be a tough one,” he added.
“At home especially, they are unbelievably lively, the mood in the club is still really good, you can see in the stadium the atmosphere is good. Obviously the people of Huddersfield don’t forget it is a special story they write – and special stories have some ups and downs.
“At the moment, results-wise there were a few downs, but performance-wise they were stronger than last year and that makes it more difficult.”