Tonight’s Champions League clash is too difficult to call.
I simply can’t predict the first leg. There will be goals, it’ll be something like 3-2 tonight – but I don’t know in which team’s favour.
But over two games I fancy Manchester City.
The players City have on the bench will be enough for them to go through to the semis.
Sergio Aguero is not involved but you’d imagine that he will be fine for the second leg, then you’ve got the likes of Bernardo Silva, Yaya Toure, Ilkay Gundogan so they’ve got match-winners on the bench.
Everybody speaks about Liverpool’s front three of Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Mo Salah, who is a contender along with Kevin de Bruyne for player of the year.
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Firmino – who Klopp calls the engine of his team – will drop deep, try and take a centre back with him and create space between the centre-backs and full-back.
Mane and Salah will start quite wide and then look to take advantage of the space in the channels and take the centre-halves out of the game.
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When you look back to Liverpool’s 4-3 Premier League win against City, they sat deep and were compact. They didn’t allow spaces behind the defenders and kept the midfield and defence close together.
A lot of teams sit deep against City, often in a 4-5-1.
But because those teams don’t have as much pace as Liverpool, the centre-forward ends up isolated, allowing Fernandinho and City’s centre backs to get the ball back.
Firmino doesn’t get isolated because of the pace of Salah and Mane. They get up so quickly to support the Brazilian. Liverpool will look to exploit the wide areas, so Guardiola might tell his full-backs to be more defensive minded.
I also think Manchester City will keep four behind the ball at all times.
They won’t leave themselves bare, and will make it more difficult for Liverpool to counter, .
Everybody always talks about Liverpool defensively and they’re not as good as they should be at the back.
But the central midfield area is really key.
Liverpool made a change after the 4-1 Tottenham defeat earlier in the season.
After that game they started to play with two midfield anchors.
During the Tottenham game it was one sitter in midfield and the two with the license to go forward.
Now they’re playing with two sitters, that could be Henderson and Milner – and they could give Oxlade-Chamberlain the license to go further forward.
It worked in the 4-3 victory, when Oxlade-Chamberlain scored the first goal.
So how do City handle Firmino? Pep’s central defenders won’t want to follow him as he drops deep, so they’ll try to hand him over to Fernandinho.
That means Fernandinho will be less able to pick up the run of Oxlade-Chamberlain.
Against Everton, City lined up on paper as a back three, but they are so mobile they can switch to more of a four during the game.
I’m a Manchester United supporter but you’ve got to respect what City are doing.
It’s one of these games when people say ‘it’s better to be away in the second leg and home in the first leg’ but that goes out the window tonight.
Manchester City play the same way, home or away, and Liverpool are the best counter-attacking team in Europe, so they’re fine away as well.
The tie isn’t over even if it’s 3-1 for either side going into the second. Both sides are so free-scoring.
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