Five good reasons why Man City will lose to Liverpool in the CL

Casting logic and common sense aside, our Liverpool blogger Dave Tindall uses stats, facts and some teary-eyed nostalgia to explain why they can beat Man City in the Champions League quarter-finals. 

I’m writing this on Wednesday morning and our Champions League quarter-final first leg tie against Manchester City at Anfield is now just six days away.

And yet, I’m pacing the room thinking about it because constant reminders are in the air from 2005.

Driving home recently, former midfield general Xabi Alonso was being interviewed by Guillem Balague about that amazing night in Istanbul. Amongst other things, the Spaniard revealed that he’d never taken a penalty as a pro before the one he struck – and missed! – in the final before bundling in the rebound to complete the fightback from 3-0 down.

On Facebook a couple of days ago, a mate put up a pic of his 2-year-old daughter with a Liverpool shirt listing the five European Cup wins (’77, ’78, ’81, ’84, ’05) so I inevitably replied that it would be out of date soon.

I also have a framed picture on my wall of Steven Gerrard and Rafa Benitez holding the 2005 Champions League trophy. It keeps winking at me.

In general, I’m a mixture of excitement, anxiety and restrained confidence.

When the draw was made, I initially felt a real sense of anti-climax. At this stage of the tournament, you surely want to be pitting your wits against the exotic glamour of Barca, Real Madrid, Juventus or Bayern Munich or facing a team that you fancy beating – Roma or Sevilla.

Instead, we got a team we place at least twice a season anyway and the tournament favourites. To add insult to injury, our name coming out first meant we’d have to play the opener at home, thus denying us the do-or-die thrill of a second leg at Anfield where the electric atmosphere helped knock out Chelsea in the semi-finals of 2005 and 2007.

However, after chats with fellow Reds and my own mind constantly drifting off and playing out the two legs in my head, I’ve got a much brighter outlook: We can win this. We can go through….

Here are five reasons why:

Fortress Anfield

 

The last five meetings at Anfield…

Liverpool 4 Man City 3

Liverpool 1 Man City 0

Liverpool 3 Man City 0

Liverpool 2 Man City 1

Liverpool 3 Man City 2

Five games, five wins, starting with the 3-2 title showdown thriller (I know, I know) in 2013/14.

The latest two victories are in the Pep Guardiola era and, of course, we’re the only team to have beaten them in the Premier League this season. In addition, LFC and City are the only two sides not to have lost at home.

Home First Leg Is A Help

This took me a while to get my head around but I see the logic now.

A mate of mine insists that, contrary to popular thought, playing the home leg first is the only way we can go through.

The thinking is that it’s absolutely vital to establish a lead in the tie and the best chance we have of doing that is at Anfield.

Imagine if the first leg was at City and we lost 3-1. At Anfield we’d have to chase the game and, more than likely, City would pick us off. Game over.

However, if roles are reversed and we take a lead to the Etihad, it’s us who could hurt them on the counter-attack. That’s when we can be devastating. Makes sense to me!

We Have Mo Salah

There’s no bias here. On current form, Mo Salah is one of the best players in the world. Fact. And he plays for us!

After the promise of pre-season, the early strikes of autumn and the realisation that his goal output was starting to take on ridiculous proportions, the Egyptian maestro now has an aura about him.

From promising new signing, in the space of a few months he now walks onto the pitch looking like ‘The Man’. Salah is a fantastically humble guy but his football has a swagger. Opponents cannot deal with him.

Those hard-to-compute numbers? 36 goals in 41 appearances. They include a 40-yarder against City themselves. The opposition have every reason to be very, very afraid.

The Front Three

Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane have scored 73 goals between them this season. 73!

Firmino has 23 of those to rubbish the idea that we don’t have a ’20-goal-a-season’ striker and, in some ways, he’s the most important player in the team given what he does off the ball. He’s also popped up with three goals and three assists in his last six games against Man City.

Mane has supposedly been out of form for half the season and yet he has 14 goals (one more than his hugely promising debut campaign), eight assists and a Champions League hat-trick at Porto in the last round.

And if you believe in Karma and irony, perhaps he has something up his sleeve for the second leg after that controversial sending off at City earlier in the season when the game was still a contest.

(By the way, for all the new records City are creating, we’ve scored more away goals in the Premier League season than them this season – 35 to 34.)

Case For The Defence

Some more numbers. LFC have five clean sheets in the last seven games and have five shutouts in the last six Champions League games.

We have a settled goalkeeper, who is growing in confidence, a talker and organiser in the shape of Virgil van Dijk and a vast upgrade at left-back in the form of flourishing Scot Andy Robertson.

There’s no coincidence about this. There are very good reasons why we aren’t shipping goals anymore.

Conclusion

Barring injuries, we’ll go into the two-legged tie against City with both our attack and defence as strong as it’s been all season. That’s a powerful combination.

It may still not be enough to beat a massively talented Manchester City side but our fans know that special things happen to us in this tournament.

They’re a huge reason why “we’ve won it five times” whereas City are trying to break new ground. If history counts for anything and can add an edge, Anfield on a European night v the Etihad on a European night is no contest.

If that sounds a little woolly, dewy-eyed and romantic, I’ll leave you with this stat that emerged after Liverpool’s 4-3 win over City in January:

Pep Guardiola has lost five matches against Jurgen Klopp, more than against any other manager.

Klopp and Guardiola: Face off at Anfield on Saturday

Football at the highest level is so often about how styles match up. City’s insistence on playing the ball out of defence is admirable. It could, though, play right into our hands.

 

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By Dave Tindall

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