Jurgen Klopp insists Liverpool’s impending Premier League triumph has arrived in the most difficult season to win the competition.
Sunday’s Merseyside derby encounter with Everton could see Klopp’s side move to within three points of clinching their first title for over 30 years.
The Goodison Park fixture had originally been due to take place on March 16 before football worldwide was suspended following the coronavirus outbreak.
With games returning behind closed doors after a three-month hiatus, some have questioned the legitimacy of the Reds’ current 22-point lead in the table.
But Klopp believes his team’s achievement is actually strengthened rather than undermined by resuming matches in the wake of the global pandemic.
He said: “Usually I do not pay too much attention to what everyone is saying around us.
“Now I have had a lot of time to read and I heard a lot and saw a lot. When that came up I had to Google the word ‘asterisk’. I only knew the word from the comic [Asterix] before.
“This is the most difficult year and season to become champions. It is an interrupted season like has never happened before.
“Whoever will be champions at the end it will be historical because it is a year that we will never forget because hopefully it is the only year we ever have like this as human beings and a society because I hope we find solutions for this kind of thing in the future.
“It is historic now more than ever. Give us an asterisk. Yes, do it. Because it is the most difficult season ever and the only difference is there is quite a points gap between us and other teams.
“But if you saw City playing the other night, saw the team they played and saw the bench they had where they changed five times and there was still no Leroy Sane on the pitch, you think: ‘Wow, that is really impressive.’ That is our opponent.
“That is why when they were having discussions about [ending] the season I felt quite tense during the lockdown. Now it is over and we are here.
“We worked so hard for this and we do not want to get over the line ‘somehow’. We want to play football. Nobody has to tell us we are nearly there.
“I am not interested in nearly, or in close. I am interested in playing the best football we can play.”