Jurgen Klopp’s side will head into the last-16 second leg tie against Inter Milan on the back of a 2-0 lead which they secured in the first leg in Italy.
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Liverpool will divert their attention from the Premier League for a short while, as the Reds welcome Italian giants Inter Milan for a high-octane Champions League clash this midweek. Jurgen Klopp’s side will head into the last-16 second leg tie on the back of a healthy 2-0 lead which they secured in the first leg in Italy. Ahead of the match, Klopp spoke about the danger of a two-goal advantage in a tie. “The danger everybody knows about. It’s 2-0, the lead I think which got turned over most often in the history of football. Because if you enter half-time 2-0 up and you have a team who thinks we are halfway through then you are already on the wrong path, so we are long enough [in the competition] and we know that,” he said in his pre-match press conference.
“It’s a much better result than I would have expected, to be honest, before we played there. The game didn’t look like we will win it 2-0 for most of the time. It was a really tough tie and a really difficult game to play. We knew before they had real quality. After that, we knew they had real quality. Now they will show up here and they won the last game 5-0. Yes, against the team bottom of the table but still really impressive.
“[Lautaro] Martinez scored, [Edin] Dzeko scored, [Robin] Gosens is back. We saw the game and we’re really happy [Nicolo] Barella is not playing because he set up I think three or four! That’s a really experienced team and they don’t come here as tourists, I know that they want to chase the game. That’s what we want to do because we are not a team who defends results, or whatever, or tries to get through somehow. We want to attack the game again and let’s see what we can get from it.”
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Recently, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola called Liverpool as the “toughest opponent” he’s faced as a manager. Reacting to it, Klopp said, “I can give that back, hey?! Easily. I could say City is the toughest opponent I ever had but I should not forget I faced him already at Bayern, so I cannot say that it was much easier, it’s just a different situation. I know what he means – we push each other on insane levels, we pushed each other on insane levels in the last few years.”
“The amount of points both teams collected, OK, we couldn’t cope with it last year for obvious reasons, but in the other years we were really around. How I said, I don’t think City would get the amount of points they will get this year if we wouldn’t be around, and the other way around is pretty much the same. It’s good but a lot of games to play, so we will see where we end up.”
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