Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has sympathy for Thursday's opponents Manchester United.

United beat Aston Villa on Sunday and lost at home to Leicester on Tuesday but will also take on Liverpool on Thursday night after their clash earlier this month was postponed because of fan protests in and around Old Trafford. Victory over Klopp's side on Thursday would almost certainly kill off Liverpool's Champions League hopes but Ole Gunnar Solskjaer maintains he had no choice but to rotate players for four games in eight days.

Klopp said: "It was the line-up I expected. Not exactly but I knew he (Solskjaer) had to make these changes.

"They played Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. I've said it 500 times that with all the protests at Manchester that led to this situation that to play Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday is a crime.

"It's not the fault of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and the players. Would I have done the same? Yes. You have to, you have to. We are late in the season, United have gone to the Europa League final, which is an awful lot of games.

"It is not possible to play Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday.

"The weekend after is a weekend off for United. I am not the guy doing the schedule but my understanding when we thought how it could work out was there would be no Tuesday-Thursday game and you could have still played them all.

"The explanation from the Premier League was that no other team should suffer because of what happened in Manchester. That didn't work out pretty well. Nobody else did but a little bit Liverpool and West Ham.

"But if we don't get into the Champions League then it's not the fault of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer or the Premier League but in this case I think they could have done it differently.

"But we are getting more and more used to things barely going in your favour or direction. We just accept it."