PEP GUARDIOLA CONCEDES he is going to have to work on a special gameplan to stop Mohamed Salah and Liverpool’s “almost unstoppable” strike force when Manchester City travel to Merseyside for a mouth-watering Champions League quarter-final first leg on Wednesday.
Liverpool’s Egyptian winger took his goal tally across all competitions in a hugely impressive debut season to 37 in Saturday’s come-from-behind 2-1 win against Crystal Palace.
City felt the full force of Liverpool’s awesome attack during an exhilarating 4-3 defeat at Anfield in January, in which Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Salah all scored in a devastating nine-minute second-half spell.
Guardiola is keen for City not to focus solely on Salah’s threat, warning that Jurgen Klopp’s side have plenty of weapons in their arsenal, but is thinking up ways to nullify the Reds’ attack.
“Yeah, I’ll have to do that [make special provisions for Salah],” Guardiola told reporters.
“But not just him. Mane, Firmino — all three are almost unstoppable. They are fantastic, fantastic players. The way Liverpool play is so, so complicated for us. We know that. They are so quick, they are so tough but it’s the quarter-finals of the Champions League so we cannot expect something at this level is going to be easy.
“We play against ourselves and say that is the target we have to overcome and we will be able to do it or not able to do it. If we are able [we make the] semi-finals, if we are not able [we say] well done Liverpool and next season we come back stronger to overcome the situation we cannot this season.”
Unsurprisingly, Guardiola has little intention of setting his side up to earn a draw at Anfield, insisting the focus is on the performance which he thinks should yield the right result for his side.
“Oh, zero-six will be good a result,” he joked.
“I was never a manager who thought what is the best result? I focus on the performance, what you have to do. The result is, most of the time, the consequence of what you have done.
“I don’t think about if a draw is a good result or a victory, of course scoring goals away is so important, we’re going to try score goals, [but they have] three people up front plus [Alex] Oxlade-Chamberlain in the middle, set-pieces with [Virgil] van Dijk, they are an extraordinary team.
But that’s what happens in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, if you play Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich… or Juventus in Turin, Roma or Sevilla — that level guys, it’s top.”
City’s 3-1 beating of Everton on Saturday means they can wrap up the Premier League title with six games to spare by beating fierce rivals Manchester United at the Etihad Stadium next weekend.
The opportunity and the longing of the fans to bring that to fruition is not lost on Guardiola, but the former Barcelona boss is refusing to be consumed by the idea.
“I want to win the Premier League,” he added. “I love Manchester City, I am a Barcelona fan, I grew up there, my heart is there, but now I am part of this club, I love to work here.
“Of course, I want to win against United at home, but three days before United we have Liverpool, and three days after we have the second leg.
I understand completely the people are happy and the enthusiasm to win the league at home against them.
“I’m not going to say: ‘Don’t be happy, don’t dream to win the league.’ I won’t say that because our opponents would say the same if it was the opposite.”
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Great save by Kelleher near the end. Comfortable afternoon for him
Top player.
Super performance and result albeit against a woeful Watford. Unlikely to be a worse performance by any PL team this season. Salah is unbelievable and his goal was magical, give him the contract his performances and goals deserve. Great to see Firmino scoring. Though Kelleher had nothing to do he kept his concentration to make a very good save at the end. Gonna be a tight title race. Surprised Salah and Mane played the 90 minutes, Minamino could have done with game time especially against that Watford team.
Mo Salah is WOW!!! a pleasure to watch him…..Firmino not bad either : )
Time to sack Ranieri…….
@John S: dilly ding dilly dong
@Heckler davies: dilly ding, dilly gone
Class win and 3 more handy points. We will be hard to stop This season as we put last seasons blip behind us
Danny Rose will sleep tonight. Great performance against an albeit poor side!!
Give Mo all the money. Almost 0% chance of being able to replace him
Lewandowski and Salah are the best players in the world on current form.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a PL side as bad as that Watford side today….if they lost 10-0 it wouldn’t have been a surprise! Woeful…
@Ottomaaan: you forgot to mention that they were up against a solid side with a rampant front three, there, I fixed it for you…. :)
@Gordon Larney: no need to fix anything. That was the worst performance I’ve ever seen from a PL side, dreadful stuff and Liverpool could have put 10 past them.
@Ottomaaan: have to agree. I was at the game and never seen such a bad performance from a PL team.
Salah in great form. But how long canhe hold that form? He has 20-25 goals in him a season, but he’s up and down. If he held this form, he’d be close to 40 goals?
Bigger tests against Athletico and United on the way.
@Finn Faulkner: did you like your own comment…
@Finn Faulkner: how long can he do that. ? He has been doing it for the last 4 seasons. 104 goals in 166 games in the Premier league but you think he should score more. Okay so
@Finn Faulkner: you’re gonna need bigger bait on that hook ….
@WESHALLNOTBEMOVED: But by that metric 4 seasons at 40 goals would be 160 goals. He hasn t done that. But my point is that if he can keep that killer hat on his head for a prolonged period, and with our squad almost injury free, he could break records for us. I’m HOPING he keeps this lethal form indefinitely. He still can’t be put in the Messi/Ronaldo category until he starts being seriously clinical. I’d love to see him win the Balloon d’Or this year (or the next)
@len len: No, but seeing as you need likes, here, have mine. Have a lovely day.
@WESHALLNOTBEMOVED: you included his Chelsea stats there, it’s 102 in 153 for Liverpool
@Shane Roche: It’s still an amazing number of goals per season, but I think he can go even further, he needs to keep this current form. Biggest tests are against Athletico and then United.
That salah. Goal was pure roy of the rovers.. Pure art.. He must be a great dancer..
As good as Liverpool are, and they are really good. This in my opinion is all about Klopp.