Jurgen Klopp has resigned himself to Liverpool’s New Year fixture congestion after the Premier League rejected plans to move their game with Sunderland.
A request to change the Reds’ trip to the Stadium of Light on January 2 to an early evening kick-off was turned down earlier this week by league officials.
Liverpool will now play two games in the space of under 46 hours after BT Sport moved their New Years Eve encounter with Manchester City to 5.30pm.
But Klopp insists that he had made peace with the decision long before yesterday’s outcome from the Premier League.
He said: “I’m not here to talk about TV contract considerations or negotiations. The only thing I said [is] I don’t think it makes so much sense.
“But in my life I thought this about a lot of things and I always accepted the situation when you couldn’t change it any more.
“What I said was that we have to try and talk to somebody who has influence on it. We did and it led to nothing – that’s how it is.
“I never wanted an advantage for Liverpool FC and say ‘Okay, let’s play City, United and Tottenham after 36 hours but give us [extra time].
“It was never for me a Liverpool problem; it was a football problem. I know a few other teams have exactly the same.
“What I asked for was not to play another day, we asked for a few hours. I think actually still it could have been possible but obviously it isn’t.
“We accepted it long ago. I didn’t think about it any more. I was a little bit angry in the first moment but I never thought that something will change.
“We play Sunderland on 2nd January and that’s not a problem any more.
“You don’t need me to tell you that the period end of December and the whole of January is not the best period of English football [but] we take it like it is.”