February 16, (THEWILL) – Liverpool, according to Pep Guardiola, are capable of stopping Manchester City from winning the Champions League this season.
The Citizens are the likely favorites for Europe’s top club competition this season, and they smashed Sporting CP 5-0 on Tuesday night to practically book their place in the quarter finals, with Bernardo Silva netting a brace and Riyad Mahrez, Phil Foden, and Raheem Sterling also scoring.
Bayern Munich, PSG, and Chelsea are among the remaining heavyweights in the continental league competition, though Liverpool has handed City some of their most humiliating defeats in recent years.
Guardiola must have had that in mind when responding to a question about which team may stop City from winning the Champions League: “Liverpool. They are six points behind us. They’ve been our biggest rivals in the past few seasons and are always there – a pain in the a***, all the time! They are a fantastic team in Europe.”
But, Guardiola was not exactly right as Liverpool is not yet six points behind City in the Premier League. For now, the Reds are actually nine points behind the leaders, though they have a game in hand.
THEWILL recalls that Liverpool thrashed Guardiola’s team 5-1 over two legs in the 2017/18 Champions League, with Klopp’s side blowing their opponents away in the first encounter, going 3-0 up in 31 minutes.
Guardiola commented on the result against Sporting saying: “The result is a dream, but the performance we can do better. I am absolutely more than delighted. We were so clinical when we arrived to the goal. We have a duty as a manager and team to analyse.”
City return to English Premier League action on Saturday when they host Tottenham Hotspur.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
