GUARDIOLA WARY OF REDS’ TRIPLE THREAT
Pep knows City could suffer at the hands of Liverpool’s Firmino, Salah and Mane
ALL football managers have moments of doubt, no matter how successful they are. For Pep Guardiola, his most recent came back in March in the away dressing room at Goodison Park.
In the midst of preparing his team for a Premier League match against Everton, Manchester City’s manager suddenly found himself consumed by the threat lurking on the immediate horizon across Stanley Park the following Wednesday. “They scare me,” Guardiola said to two of his coaches. “They are dangerous. I mean it.”
Guardiola — his words picked up by cameras filming for the recently released Amazon documentary about the club – was talking about the Liverpool attacking three of Roberto Firmino, Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane. “That is Liverpool,” he said. “No more than that.”
The setting and timing of Guardiola’s little outburst may have been incongruous — moments before a game against a different team — but the Spaniard’s fears proved wellfounded.
At Anfield in the first leg of City’s Champions League quarter-final against Liverpool, Guardiola’s team were shot down in a blaze of Liverpool glory. Salah scored the first goal and Mane the third. The game — the tie — was over in 31 minutes.
Almost exactly six months later, City go to Anfield again today. The threat will be identical and the challenge grows larger for City with each passing season.
City have not won at Liverpool since Nicolas Anelka scored twice in a 2-1 win in May 2003.
For Guardiola the issue of how to nullify and overcome Jurgen Klopp’s explosive team away from home remains the biggest nut to crack while for players like Vincent Kompany and Sergio Aguero — who has never scored at Anfield — visits to the famous old ground have begun to resemble trips to a torture chamber.
After last year’s Champions League game, Guardiola bemoaned the fact that his team had made it ‘so easy’ for Salah in particular.
But asked on Friday if he thought his players had finally learned how to defend against Liverpool’s front three, Guardiola’s reply was in character.
“These guys are so dangerous,” he said. “But I always feel the same. My game is to attack better than them.
“I’ve never understood the idea of going to the biggest stages and just defending. We have to defend when we need to but that is not our approach. It would be boring and we didn’t build the team that way. We have to be ourselves, even at Anfield.
“Salah and Firmino and Mane like to be with the ball and attack, attack, attack. To minimise that we have to attack as much as possible ourselves. If we lose, congratulations to Jurgen [Klopp] and his players and we will have to try again.”
With City having taken top position from Liverpool after last weekend’s Premier League action, today’s game is not short of significance. Liverpool finished a huge 25 points behind champions City last season and will definitely be closer this time.
Increasingly, there is little love lost between the two clubs. With Manchester United a fading force, Liverpool represent the greatest threat to what City hope will be a period of domestic hegemony.