John Aldridge looks ahead to Liverpool’s top of the table Premier League clash with Man City in the second half of his weekly ECHO column
It goes without saying that Sunday is massive against Man City. We want to keep our noses in front and keep them in our hands.
If you want to go on and win the league, you have to make a statement. They are the best team in the league with us. Arsenal are close. You just have to do the job on the day.
Keep a clean sheet and we will probably win the game. Easier said than done with the quality we’ve got. But Pep Guardiola knows more than anyone.
Liverpool are his worst nightmare. He can’t stop talking about Liverpool. It’s in his head all the time, Liverpool.
As good as they are, as good as they’ve been, and as good as he is, he can’t get Liverpool out of his mind. We all know that, and let’s hope we can keep that going on Sunday.
It’s so important to have some players coming back from injury now, with Sparta Prague coming up and then Man City at the weekend. Our midfielders against them will probably be Wataru Endo, Dominik Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister. They are probably the strongest three, as we stand.
Good timing, but now we just want Mohamed Salah back for Sunday, hopefully. Whether he’s on the bench or fit enough to start.
I managed Jason Koumas at Tranmere – I’m made up for Lewis, and Jayden Danns looks the real deal
I was made up for the two young strikers against Southampton. I knew Jason Koumas very well, I managed him at Tranmere.
He’s a great lad and has tremendous ability. It’s rubbed off on his son and that’s brilliant to see. A fantastic goal. He’s just got to keep working hard on his game.
Danns came on and was absolutely brilliant. The first goal was super-great awareness, but I loved the second goal. Anything that comes off the keeper, bang, there you go. Smashed in.
The ability he has shown and the character, even when he came on for 10-15 minutes at the weekend, held it up well, got involved well, and caused them problems.
It’s been a great week for Bobby Clark, too. He did well when making his full-league debut against Forest. He had that one moment in the first half.
He went close, and it was a good effort. He’ll get better and better with experience, and he showed some great things with his play.
But, as a striker myself, it’s great to see young strikers come through. We’ve had so many promising young strikers over the last 10–15 years, only to see them flit away. They’ve flitted away.
I’ve watched a number of centre-forwards at the academy and thought, ‘Oh yeah, here we go. He looks good.’ But they’ve flitted away.
I don’t want to speak too soon about Danns, but he looks like the real deal. It is only early days, but from what I’ve seen.
He just needs to keep working on his game. His finishing is there, that is clear having seen him over the last couple of seasons for the Under-18s and Under-21s. His finishing is brilliant, but to do it in front of the Kop is absolutely brilliant. Magnificent from both of them.
And they’ve all played a massive role in setting up a trip to Manchester United in the FA Cup. You don’t want them to knock you out of anything, such as the rivalry between the two clubs.
We’ve got more trophies now, and it would be nice to go all the way. There are some very good teams still in the FA Cup. It’s not going to be easy, but no-one will want to draw Liverpool, and that means Manchester United as well. It’s a bit of a nightmare for them to draw us.
