Jurgen Klopp accepts there will be pressure on him to win a first trophy with Liverpool this season.
The German will celebrate his third anniversary as manager in October and, although he has brought plenty of excitement to Anfield, so far he has not managed to add any silverware.
Liverpool have lost in three finals under Klopp - the League Cup and Europa League in his first campaign and the Uefa Champions League last season - while finishing eighth, fourth and fourth in the Premier League.
"People will say that. It is the next step and we need to be ready for that," Klopp said. "I cannot give guarantees here but I understand if people think that. I know about the expectations and that is completely normal.
"First of all we have to play the football that gives us an opportunity to win something. We cannot talk about winning something before we start the season.
"I am confident we can build on last season. It's not that we lost things completely but you have to work on it to get it back. The football the boys played last year was not easy. There was a lot of work invested into playing like that. That's what we will do again. I am not in doubt about our basis or that we will reach it again.
"Other teams, of course, will do transfer business as well. They will not be weaker than last year. City brought in [Riyad] Mahrez. I did not hear that they lost one player so far. So it means the quality of last year plus Mahrez. That's a nice plan as well. United will go for it, too, and that's completely normal.
"We expect more from ourselves. We will go again for the championship and each kind of cup but that does not mean I can sit here and we will get it. We have the highest ambitions, 100 per cent."
Klopp has been working hard to integrate new arrivals Naby Keita and Fabinho into the squad, with Xherdan Shaqiri yet to join up with his new teammates following his World Cup exploits.
A number of other key names are also still missing. "I want to have the best start ever but we all know something can happen and it is all questioned in a second," Klopp said.
"I am in the third season and each season we have a period where a few people questioned me or our progress and all that stuff and in the end it was OK. I am prepared for these moments. I don't want to have them but I will not go nuts and think we have lost everything.
"The new players will make us stronger 100 per cent. But it will not happen in the first day. It is all about staying calm, looking at the situation, judging it right and then make the step."
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Liverpool won three of their four matches against Manchester City last season, including both legs of their Champions League quarter-final, but finished 25 points behind them in the league.
Klopp believes consistency is the answer to closing the gap.
"It is not just that we have to be more consistent, we have to create circumstances where we can be more consistent. Nobody is consistent with 11 players. What we are working on is the depth of the squad," he said.
