Liverpool travel to the Etihad this weekend to face Manchester City in the Premier League for arguably the biggest match of the season so far. But the kick-off time has caused great annoyance for manager Jurgen Klopp.

Saturday's trip to City will be the 14th time the Reds have played in the Saturday lunchtime slot after an international break since Klopp was appointed at the Anfield helm back in October 2015. That number is a significant contrast to those of Chelsea (6), Tottenham Hotspur (6), Manchester United (5) and Manchester City (5).

However, despite the displeasure of the Liverpool manager, who earlier this month insisted the decision-makers who allocated the top-of-the-table Premier League clash for the lunchtime slot "don't feel football", the powers that be were left with few alternatives due to the timing of the fixture.

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Fixtures of such magnitude would normally be reserved for the final part of Sky Sports' Super Sunday coverage. However, with Pep Guardiola's side in Champions League action against RB Leipzig on Tuesday, November 28 there would not be sufficient recovery time to demand them to participate in a Sunday afternoon kick-off.

Therefore Sky Sports, who own the rights to Premier League packages B, C, D and E - equating to 128 games per season - reserved the fixture to be televised as one of their 32 picks for the Saturday 5:30 pm slot.

This, though, was not possible with the Daily Mail reporting last month that the local safety advisory group - which includes Greater Manchester Police - rejected the proposal due to a rising number of incidents in games between the two clubs in recent seasons.

In the aftermath of that decision, Sky Sports and TNT have agreed to reverse their television slots for the upcoming weekend, with Liverpool's trip to East Manchester still being shown on Sky Sports despite being shown in TNT's typical Package A slot.

Such an explanation has already fallen on the deaf ears of Klopp, who will watch his side restart the post-international fixture list for the third time after as many international breaks this campaign.

Speaking after the victory over Brentford last time out, Klopp said: "Okay, no-one can say at the moment but how can you put a game like this on Saturday at 12.30pm?

"Honestly, the people making the decisions, they cannot feel football, it is just not possible. And if that is the moment where the world pays the most to see a football game then nobody has to tell us. I don't know if that is the case, I really don't.

"There could have been a moment when you have these two teams who have, all together, about 30 international players. They all come back on the same plane by the way, all the South American players.

"They all fly back [together], we put them on the plane from Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia. One game, one plane, they all come back. But the start of the season is the start of the season, we just have to make sure we are ready for this game."

The Reds boss added: "No, it's possible [that we're ahead of schedule] but I didn't think about it. But it feels good. It is only November. But it's really important we have the same points as other teams. We didn't play perfect football yet, not even close. But we fight our way through in moments, we showed a top reaction today and it is all fine.

"But we have to keep going with all the other teams until maybe March or April and if you are still there, we can start talking. Until then it is fight your way through the most difficult league in the world and be ready on Thursday and on Sunday and Thursday. And if the Premier League has the opportunity to do it, be ready on Saturday at 12.30pm."

Liverpool will be sweating on the condition of four of their stars ahead of this weekend, with Alexis Mac Allister, Darwin Nunez, Alisson Becker and Luis Diaz all in action for their South American nations in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

After that, the quartet are expected to board a private charter plane back to Merseyside in the hope that preparations for Saturday's game are better than those of September, which saw Mac Allister return from an oxygen-zapped Bolivia to line-up against Wolverhampton Wanderers just hours later.