Clarke: Liverpool Will Treat The United Game Like Any Other

Liverpool No.2 Steve Clarke insists the club are treating their match with Manchester Untied next week as any other.

The Premiership giants lock horns next Saturday with Liverpool hoping to close the gap at the top of the table. Speaking to the club’s official website, Clarke said it’s going to be tough trying to prepare for such a big game after the international break as they will have limited time to work with the squad:

“The preparations will be exactly the same. We don’t get the full group to work with until the day before the game, which is disappointing but you just have to deal with it.

“The boys that are left behind do their work as normal – we work them hard in training, give them pointers towards the game and if we can give them something that will make the game easier for them on Saturday then that’s good.

“It’s not ideal because it [the game] comes on the back of an international break and we’ve only had five or six players left behind here at Melwood.”

The likes of Luis Suarez and Sebastian Coates are currently away with Uruguay on international duty and will have just one day of training before facing Sir Alex’s men.

“We don’t get the group back in it’s entirety until Thursday afternoon when the boys come back from South America, so you don’t get a lot of time to work with the team,” he continued.

“The majority will be reporting in on Wednesday. We’ll make sure they’re okay after the internationals and do a light training session. It will be similar on Thursday.

“Hopefully we’ll have time on Friday to do a bit of team play and get them ready for the game, but it’s a difficult situation. You just hope you get players coming back fit and well and you work on them mentally to make sure they’re ready for such a big game.”