Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
These two sides only met on Sunday as Manchester City got the better of the two sides in the Capital One Cup Final thanks to Willy Caballero heroics in the Penalty Shoot Out. It’s City with the silverware but can Liverpool make it a Premier League double over the blue half of Manchester.
With no League game at the weekend Liverpool now found themselves back in 9th position in the Premier League table. There’s a small dilemma now for Jurgen Klopp, does he put all his focus into winning the Europa League and get in the Champions League next season through the backdoor or does he try and pull off the unthinkable and aim for the Top 4.
There is currently a 9 point gap over their opponents Tonight a win would make it 6 and all of a sudden they are back in the mix but if that is to happen their league form has to improve for the run in, It’s only 2 wins in the last 5 and that’s too patchy for any side with Champions League aspirations.
Last time out in the League they thumped Aston Villa 6-0 at Villa Park, six different scorers were on the sheet that day, but it’s hard to say how much of a measure that were Liverpool were good and Villa were bad that afternoon. Probably somewhere in the middle I guess.
Their opponents tonight Manchester City now have to try and use their Wembley win as a springboard for Domestic success. The gap to Leicester almost looks a bit too sizeable for Claudio Ranieri’s side to be caught but with the amount of talent they have at their disposal you certainly can’t rule them out of the title race just yet.
They’ve lost their last two league encounters and both to their title rivals, massive defeats in terms of the title race itself and Manuel Pellegrini will have to make sure that it’s not 3 in a row as that would probably be the fatal blow in City’s title hopes.
Willy Caballero has made a good case for him to start after his Penalty heroics but I would imagine that Joe Hart will reclaim his place in between the sticks for City this Evening. Apart from that you have to wonder how much Extra Time would have taken out of not only City but Liverpool as well so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a fair few changes this Evening.
I think the fact Sunday’s game went to Penalties will have a bearing on the pace of this game, it certainly won’t be a repeat of Liverpool’s 4-1 demolition job back in November at The Etihad and City are certainly going to want to take some revenge for that.
City need a win to stay in the outside line of the title race while Liverpool will be wanting some quick revenge for Sunday’s defeat. I have a feeling we could see another draw but this time with no extra time to split them, a share of the points for me and City edging further away from a 3rd title in 5 seasons.
