Jürgen Klopp today detailed why being part of Liverpool versus Manchester United fixtures is 'something special' as he vowed his side would fight to clinch all three points on Sunday and maintain their outstanding start to 2018-19.

The boss will take charge of the Reds for the eighth time against the club's old rivals, though he has yet to secure a victory over them in the Premier League.

And while Liverpool go into the weekend encounter 16 points ahead of United in the standings, Klopp feels that will count for little come kick off, insisting his side will 'need to be angry' if they're to prevail.

Read on for a summary of the manager's pre-match press conference thoughts on the meeting with Jose Mourinho's men below...

On the global significance of the fixture…

Being part of the game is pretty special, I can say that. It’s a big one. When I heard about the game, when I was back in Germany years ago, I tried everything I could to watch it. Very often it was very intense and now I am in for a couple of years, it was always tight. In the Europa League, we were very successful against them, which was really good.

In the league, I don’t remember bad results too much, to be honest, but I don’t feel we always got the right result for the performance we had. Last year, they had a very, very good start in the home game against us and then we more or less took over but couldn’t get the game back, so it was a draw. Before, I don’t even remember it, but I don’t think we won a lot, so we’ll try to change that at least. It will be a very intense game and we need to be ready for that.

It’s really important because this week we reached a big target on Tuesday night, so we had one day exactly to feel the relief a little bit with that. Until Monday night and Tuesday afternoon it was not clear that we would stay in the Champions League. The boys did the job, so then we took the Wednesday to really calm down and since yesterday we are back on track.

Now today is the most important session to prepare for the game. I am really looking forward to it, it will be a big one. I think the people are ready to create again an atmosphere similar to Tuesday night, which was very special again. I am looking forward to it.

On how much he enjoys being involved in the fixture…

It’s good. It is one of these games when the players when the players talk to each other in the dressing room, the ones who have played it already prepare pretty much the others because it is special.

As I said before, it is well one of the games which you sign with your contract to try to do everything you have to win it. It’s an absolutely a big one. It is - historically - a big one and if Alex Ferguson says it is the British El Clasico then I am really blessed because I was already a part of the German El Clasico! It’s a cool game.

On the gap between the sides in the table…

I really don’t think I was ever interested in the points of Manchester United and I’m not today, obviously. Of course I’m aware of the criticism but when we make the analysis and switch off the sound, it’s all quality. There’s a lot of quality; there’s speed, there’s technique, there’s physical strength, they have pretty much everything. They still have De Gea in goal. It’s unbelievable. They have strikers – they can switch between Rashford, Lukaku and others; they have Lingard, they have Martial. They have unbelievable quality. We don’t judge the points they have, we judge the quality they have, and we prepare for that.

On how away teams approach games at Anfield…

I don’t know what other teams make of our situation. But we never thought before a game, because we have a few good results in the past at home, that it would be easy in the next game. That’s not the mood you can win football games in. We have to be angry on Sunday and we will be. We fight for our points, we don’t sort problems for others or whatever; we have our own problems and our own targets and we go for them.