JAKARTA - Liverpool will face Manchester City in the Premier League Cup continued, Friday, December 23 in the morning WIB. Both teams will fight for tickets to the quarter-finals at the Etihad Stadium.
Unlike before, the officials of the two teams were avoiding the hot atmosphere ahead of the match. In fact, Liverpool assistant manager Pep Lijnders called for respect from supporters.
This cannot be separated from the background of the bad incident that damaged the meeting of the two teams. The final match between the two Premier League giants was marked by accusations by Man City fans making a rough chant about the 1989 Hillsborough disaster that claimed the lives of 97 Liverpool fans.
Meanwhile, City admitted that the team's coaching staff and buses were thrown with coins.
In the match that took place at Anfield last October, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp was sent off for insulting the linesman after the referee did not fly his flag when Bernardo Silva fouled Mohamed Salah.
Liverpool chief executive Billy Hogan and his City partner Ferran Soriano have written a joint letter to supporters for them to take responsibility.
"The two clubs have worked very positively together. Ferran and Billy made a good statement, that's for sure," Lijnders said, as quoted by Antara, Thursday, December 22.
"Kami tahu pertandingan melawan City itu penting dan dari persaingan muncul emosi, itu bagus."
"We need emotions from the stands and we need to feel this game is important. The only problem with emotion is when there is no respect. That's really hard."
The current problems also occurred in 2018 when the City team coach was targeted by a bottle when he arrived at Anfield for the Champions League quarter-finals.
At that time Klopp was accused of increasing tensions with his pre-match comments regarding City's financial influence.
"Of course. The peak of sport is emotional. There is a limit," he said. "The top sport sees the line you want to go through but you hold back."
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