Manchester United's complaints over the fixture schedule that sent them to Everton on Saturday lunchtime after a Wednesday night Champions League fixture in Istanbul have found an unlikely ally in Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp.
Klopp said Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was correct after he labelled the decision to schedule United's trip to Goodison Park for 12.30pm on a Saturday an "absolute shambles".
United only returned from Istanbul in the early hours of Thursday morning and while they managed to win on Merseyside despite the tight turnaround, Luke Shaw and Marcus Rashford both picked up injuries.
Solskjaer said his side had been "set up to fail" and Klopp revealed he had recently held a meeting with the Premier League fixture schedulers but had no confidence things would change.
"I spoke about two weeks ago, a meeting with a person at the Premier League who organised the fixtures. We cannot change it. It is not about Manchester United, Liverpool and City. These things should not happen," Klopp said after Liverpool's 1-1 draw with Manchester City.
"The Premier League needs to fulfil more the position of the unity of the players. Usually, in the season we all have a November and December. This year the October is like a December, the November is like a November and the December is still like a December."
Klopp said the teams playing on Wednesday night in Europe shouldn't be considered for the early Saturday fixture and also criticised the decision to schedule Tottenham's trip to West Brom for midday on a Sunday, when Jose Mourinho's side had played in Bulgaria on Thursday night.
The Liverpool boss also backed Pep Guardiola's demands for the Premier League to allow teams to make five substitutions this season, in line with every other major European league.
"It is completely normal we play a Saturday, it is the 12:30 that is a killer. Tottenham played Thursday and today play 12pm. The only problem is we injured the players. It is not about us. It is about the players," added Klopp.
"We have to talk again about the five subs. If 14 teams say that, let us make five subs when we play each other. We want to play football, it is great but Wednesday night and 12.30pm should not be allowed. Ole was right.
"City and us played Tuesday. If the Tuesday teams is in contention for the Saturday 12.30pm that is OK but the Wednesday teams should not be in contention.
"Sky, BT, Premier League, they have to talk. Tonight we lost Trent [Alexander-Arnold], I am pretty sure. If we continue like this hopefully we can play the Euros next summer, let’s see which players can be part of that."
