Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has brushed aside the “circus” which currently surrounds the club while dismissing any mind games being played by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

The Premier League restarts after the international break with the Reds, top by eight points, heading to 12th-placed Manchester United – 15 points behind – on Sunday.

It is arguably the biggest fixture in the football calendar between England’s two most successful clubs but with Liverpool having started the season so well and United so poorly, the two extremes of hyperbole have been ramped up.

In comparison with Klopp, Solskjaer actually has a better record after their first 29 Premier League matches: 14 wins and seven draws compared to the German’s 13 wins and eight draws.

The Norwegian remains under scrutiny but Klopp feels that is unfair.

“I have no clue about his position. It’s not important what you are writing, it is more important what the board, Ed Woodward and the Glazer family are telling him. I don’t have an opinion about that,” he said.

“I want every manager in the world to have as much time as he can get to bring through his ideas, but you can never compare situations – our situation when I came in to their situation now.

“Man United is a massive club and nobody is ready to wait for success. In my case it was not any different.

“He has to live with that. If there was any doubt internally, it would be bad. But as long as it is only externally, that is not important really.

“I know people think sometimes the manager has to manage Real Madrid before he can take over but that is not the truth. He knows what he has to do.”