James Milner has waxed lyrical about the current Liverpool team, remarkably claiming we’re as good, if not better, than the Manchester City teams he won two titles with.
The Englishman was predominantly a substitute during City’s 2011/12 win and in 2013/14 too – when they somehow pipped us to the post.
At City he played with the likes of Carlos Tevez, Vincent Kompany, David Silva and Sergio Aguero in their peak – but Milner thinks Liverpool’s style under Jurgen Klopp makes us equally formidable.
Milner told Sky Sports: “I’ve been very fortunate to play in a lot of good teams, with a lot of good players.
“Obviously winning a couple of titles at City, we had some very good players, but as a team this is probably the best team I’ve played in.
“The Man City team were obviously a top side, and arguably had more standout individual players. We’ve got a lot of good players at Liverpool too, but I think as a team we play a different style, everyone works together and we need to do that the way we play.
“It’s two completely different teams and styles of play, but two fantastic teams.”
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On our opponents, Milner earmarked three players for Liverpool to pay particular attention to, including the winger we sold to City in summer 2015 after a drawn-out, bitter saga: Raheem Sterling.
“We always work on the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition. They’ve got a lot of top, top players.
“David Silva is incredible, he always gets the weight of pass right, Raheem [Sterling] has gone and done really well, and obviously Sergio [Aguero] is so sharp around the box.
“They’ve got a lot of top players to stop, but we’ve got a good record against them, we’ll set up the way the manager wants, we’ll set up in training this week, look at their weaknesses and hopefully exploit them.”
We travel to the Etihad on Sunday evening in what’s going to be crunch game for our top four chances. If we lose, we’ll go four points behind the Sky Blues, and they’ll have a game in hand to boot, so it’s pivotal we at least pick up a point.