Manchester Evening News

Ilkay: Pep wants to end Anfield hoodoo

- By STUART BRENNAN stuart.brennan@men-news.co.uk @StuBrennan­MEN

PEP Guardiola has told his City aces that they can grab another piece of history by winning at Anfield tomorrow.

The manager has used the Blues’ poor record on the red side of Merseyside as motivation for his players, as they seek to extend their unbeaten start to the Premier League season.

Guardiola usually dismisses records and statistics as peripheral to the main task of playing well and winning, but he felt fit to remind his players what a tough task awaits them.

Midfielder Ilkay Gundogan revealed: “Pep told us we have just won there twice in 30 years or something, so we will go there and believe we can win.”

City’s record is actually worse than that – they have won there just once in 36 years.

But Gundogan feels that victory away to another top, in-form side will lift the Blues in the way victory at Chelsea did in the first half of the season.

“It could be a big moment for us – Anfield is one of the hardest stages to play away,” he said. “If we can do it, maybe it doesn’t matter, but we need to show the same spirit as we showed away at Chelsea and United.

“We have beaten all the big teams until now and we want to keep that going – it will be hard against a great team with a great manager.

“On good days we could beat any team in the world. We will just go and play the way we have for months.”

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